


Early Bird

by forever_and_always



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale pack, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - No Hale Fire (Teen Wolf), Always Female Stiles Stilinski, Babies, Breastfeeding, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, F/M, Family Shenanigans, Light Angst, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Multi, Mutual Pining, Single Parent Stiles Stilinski, Slow Build Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2020-10-29 01:01:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20787977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forever_and_always/pseuds/forever_and_always
Summary: Stiles Stilinski has a plan for moving back to Beacon Hills. Her daughter has other thoughts.Cue some magic, some werewolves, and the best infant wingman a person could ask for.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This came from me being super hormonal and super stressed, and like always, it's so self-indulgent. Hope you guys enjoy!

Stiles looked down at the swaddled newborn in her lap and had to take a moment to breathe. This was the first time in two days she was completely alone, or alone as one could be with the sudden arrival of a new born. At least, it proved her daughter was a Stilinski through and through.

The plan was for Stiles to defend her dissertation to the Emissary Council, pass with flying colors, carefully pack up the last of her belongings, surprise her dad before he could get angry at her for driving the long stretch between San Francisco and Beacon Hills by herself 37 weeks pregnant, and then enjoy a few days of rest before beginning the delicate process of officially becoming the emissary to Beacon Hills territory overseen by the Hale Pack. Baby Stilinski, though, had different plans.

Stiles had felt fine during the six hour drive. She stopped to pee in every county she passed through because of her bladder continuously getting sat on, but she had been able to breathe easier in the first time in weeks, which she should have caught as a sign after all the birthing classes she made Scott attend with her and their rare open weekends. By the time Stiles pulled into the driveway of her childhood home, she had enough time to put her jeep in park before rushing as fast as she could to the closest bathroom. Her dad’s missing cruiser was enough of an indication that her dad wasn’t home, so she didn’t feel bad about raiding the house for any food she could get her hands on and heading upstairs to her old bedroom to take a well-deserved nap.

She had paused in the open doorway to the spare guest room that her father had turned into a full nursery without her knowing. Tears sprang up and welled without her permission, and Stiles didn’t even blame it on uncontrollable hormones. In that moment, Stiles was just a young woman who deeply missed her mother and was grateful for the father she still had.

The Sheriff hadn’t been the happiest when Stiles revealed she was pregnant, but after some time to digest the news and understand Stiles’ decisions, he quickly grew to love the idea of becoming a grandparent. And he had been her biggest supporter in her move back to Beacon Hills.

Stiles entered her room and face planted as much as she could with her over-inflated midsection, drifting off into a dreamless sleep in a patch of warm sunlight. When she woke up it was dark, and when an aching pain radiated from her lower back, she knew she had gone into labor.

She found her dad in the kitchen making dinner after carefully hobbling down the stairs and let him wrap her in a strong hug she had missed so much. And then she made the announcement that Baby Stilinski was wanting to join them earlier than originally expected. She hadn’t realized she had been on the verge of a panic attack until the Sheriff pulled her in tightly again and reminded her to breath.

He bundled her up on the couch with a plate of easy to digest foods and glass of water with orders to finish everything while he went to call in reinforcements. Scott showed up first, looking equal parts excited and determined, as if he was the one who just entered the first stage of early labor. Melissa knocked on the front door shortly after the arrival of her son, accompanied by a doula in training from the hospital, a young woman named Kira, whom Stiles later discovered while resting between contractions was a kitsune.

At least one person, if not more, had been in the room with Stiles until now. Her dad had to go into the station to rearrange shifts to have more time with Stiles and the baby, and she all but kicked Scott out so he could take a decent shower, get some decent sleep, and maybe ask Kira out on a date. Melissa came and went when her schedule allowed. The actual nurses in the maternity ward were satisfied with Baby Stilinski’s well-being despite being early and had finally given them the privacy to bond, not without suggesting Baby Stilinski needed a first name besides Baby before they left.

Stiles stared at the sleeping face of her daughter, the little wisps of dark blonde hair sticking out from her teeny-tiny knitted hat, and admitted only to herself that she missed having another adult around. Her body ached all over, and although she kept turning down pain medication, she would kill for dose of werewolf mojo to take some of the aches away.

As soon as Baby Stilinski got a name and completed the last few of her baby checks, they were both home free. Hospitals still weren’t Stiles’ favorite places to stay in for long periods of time. She much preferred to recoup in the privacy of her childhood home. Better yet, she needed to get out into the woods and rebalance her spark that got out of whack during the more intense stages of labor.

She could feel the excess energy rolling around in her stomach and at the base of her skull and hoped the feeling didn’t grow worse before she was allowed to leave.

Stiles watched as the baby dragged her eyes open and slowly blinked twice. She’d been a pretty chill baby the forty-three hours she’d been in the world, but it wasn’t like Stiles had a lot of prior experience with the temperaments of newborns. If her dad and Melissa were to be believed, the chillness was a blessing and there was no way it would last for long, especially not since she was Stiles’ daughter and Stiles had supposedly been a tiny, colicky terror until she turned six months old.

But when Baby Stilinski pursed her lips followed by a scrunched up face, Stiles knew her daughter was seconds away from a hunger cry. That much she’d figured out in her very short stint as a parent, and she would probably throw master diaper changer on the list too.

She pulled down the shoulder of her oversized flannel to expose a breast and helped her daughter latch on. She grabbed a spare pillow to support her arms, leaned back on the pile propping her up in bed, and continued to stare at the tiny body of the baby in her arms.

This was another moment that made Stiles miss her mom. Melissa was amazing and did her best to fill that role when Stiles asked for it, but they both knew she could never truly stand in for Claudia. And her dad could share all the stories he wanted, but Stiles would never be able hear them from the source.

She stroked her daughter's soft cheek and imagined what she'd look like when she was no longer a squishy blob. From having a basic understanding of biology, Stiles knew there was a chance her baby could remain blonde haired and blue eyed which wouldn't be a bad reminder of the Stilinski side of things, but it would also be a reminder of the sperm donor who wanted nothing to do with his child. Stiles much preferred her daughter to keep the tradition of brown hair, round brown eyes, and beauty marks she had gotten from her own mother.

Stiles was caught up in the rush of hormones from breastfeeding and thinking about her mom that she didn't immediate look up when she heard the door to her hospital room click open, figuring it was a nurse sneaking in to pester about putting a name on the birth certificate.

To say that Stiles was surprised when she finally looked up to see a very attractive man, who was also very much a stranger, standing in the open doorway looking as shocked as Stiles felt, would be an understatement.

"Jesus Christ!" shouted Stiles in reaction to being startled. She reached for a corner of a blanket to cover herself up.

Baby Stilinski scrunched up in displeasure from being jolted but she didn't completely detach, oblivious to the new presence in the room. Stiles spared her one last brief glance to make sure she was okay before throwing the blanket over her shoulder and turning her attention back to the unknown man in her room.

"I don't know who you think you are, dude" she continued, "but as you can see, I'm a little busy, and I highly suggest you leave before I alert security.

Stiles watched the man's eyes flick from looking at her face to her blanket covered chest and back up to meet her eyes.

"Sorry," he said. "I wasn't paying attention. I came to visit a friend who just had a baby, and I guess this is the wrong room."

“Yeah, looks like it,” replied Stiles not trying to keep the bite from her tone.

The man continued to stand there, one hand on the door handle and the other handing at his side, looking at her with a now unreadable expression on his face.

Under different circumstances, Stiles would have trusted the spark in her veins saying that the man wasn’t a treat. But Stiles also had to listen to her recently awoken mothering instincts that told her this new face was a danger. And then there was the third side to Stiles, the more reckless side, that got momentarily stuck on the fact that the man really was attractive- dark tousled hair, well maintained beard, a henley and jeans that left nothing to imagination, plus a voice that had been a lot softer than expected.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but some noise further down the hallway caught his attention and he finally broke his gaze.

Stiles shifted in bed to get more comfortable when her daughter began to squirm in her swaddling.

The man’s head snapped back to look at Stiles and her blanketed chest like he could tell Baby Stilinski was starting to not like her constraints.

“I’ve found my friends. I’m sorry, again, for the mistake.” His lips formed something that looked sort of like a smile, or maybe an embarrassed grimace. “Uh, congratulations,” the man rushed to added before ducking out the door.

“Uh, thanks?”

At least he had the courtesy to close the door behind him.

Stiles waited a few seconds to make sure no one else was going to unexpectedly enter. When it was quiet, she removed the blanket, adjusted her flannel with one hand, and brought her daughter up to her shoulder to burp. Stiles softly pat the baby’s back the way she seemed to like and looked out the open blinds of her hospital room. The rising sun had just reached the top of the trees in the preserve, tinting the sky with a golden glow. She had a strong feeling that interesting mornings were going to become routine in her immediate future.

With a final pat, Stiles settled them both in more comfortable position and said to no one in particular, “Welcome to Beacon Hills.” 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Derek Hale

"Derek!" called a voice from down the hall. "What are you doing? Get over here."

Derek looked back to the woman who was definitely not Erica, but somehow still seemed so familiar, and did his best to apologize before making his escape. His older sister, Laura, kept her head stuck out into the hallway and raised a perfectly arched eyebrow at him as he hurried towards her.

“What were you doing over there, little bro?” she asked.

“You said Erica was in room 406, and that was not the correct room number,” replied Derek, raising his own eyebrow in a challenge.

Laura whipped her head to the plate beside the door that displayed the room number. It very clearly did not say 406.

“Whoops. Four-oh-six, Four-oh-eight. It’s close enough!”

“Not when you walk in expecting to see one of your closest friends and instead it’s some random women in the middle of breastfeeding her child!”

Laura rolled her eyes. “It’s not like you haven’t seen that plenty of times before.”

“That’s not the point.” Derek defensively crossed his arms over his chest, but most of his initial anger had already dissipated. He knew how Laura got whenever there was a birth in the pack and understood that the switch in room numbers was probably an honest mistake. “Can I see the baby now?”

“Oh, right!” She straightened from where she was blocking the door and opened it wider so Derek could enter.

Inside was a much different sight from the first room Derek accidentally entered. Instead of a lone occupant sitting in partial darkness, a tired looking but brightly smiling Erica sat in bed surrounded on all sides by pack, who were in the process of greeting their littlest member.

Derek took a few steps further into the room and felt something collapse into him at the knees. He looked down to see a tiny head full of curls that belonged to one Charlotte Boyd, five years old and often the center of attention.

“Uncle Derek!” she whisper-yelled. “Are you here to see my baby bother?”

“Yes,” he whispered back.

Charlotte lifted her arms up from where they had been wrapped around Derek’s thighs in the universal sign of wanting to be picked up, which Derek was gladly willing to do for her. He balanced her on one hip and walked deeper into the room and closer where the pack was passing the baby back and forth, not missing Erica and Boyd smirking at their older child’s usual antics and Derek’s just as usual pushoverness. 

His mother placed the baby in Laura’s waiting arms and kissed Derek on the cheek in greeting. “I’m glad you could make it, honey.”

“I’m glad I could be here too. It’s nice that I have today off,” said Derek.

“And I’m glad he decided to wait until I had at least a full night of sleep,” added Erica from the bed.

Her husband had moved from his post standing at the side bed to sitting at the head so that Erica could lean back and be bracketed by his body.

“That one,” she said pointing to Charlotte in Derek’s grip, “took her sweet time, and I lost two days of sleep from being in active labor for thirty-six hours.”

Most of the adults in the room shared a look that meant they clearly remember the events that comprised the long, drawn out birth of Charlotte. The first time Erica announced to the pack she was pregnant, six years earlier, had been met with excitement from everyone but only partial unexpectedness. Derek knew Boyd and Erica were drawn to each other from the moment he first met them during a pack meeting in the wake of a rouge Alpha turning several teenagers in town, Boyd and Erica included.

He watched them grow in confidence and strength under the protection of his pack and his family, but their attachment quickly and surely became love. And no one really batted a negative eye at their announcement, despite their relatively young age to be parents, because everyone in the pack understood the nature of wolves and unencumbered devotion.

A lot of days, Derek wished he could have what Erica and Boyd have, or his parents, or Laura and her boyfriend, or any other the other members in his pack who were in long-term relationships have. The love they shared, the happiness. Whenever he got too moody about it though, his mom could tell and would tell him in a voice that was all mother and not Alpha, that the person he was waiting for was also waiting for him, and that he needed to be ready to catch when they came his way. 

Charlotte’s birth also marked the beginning to the next generation of Hale wolves which was always a reason for a pack to celebrate. Each new addition meant the pack was healthy and thriving. 

For the birth of Boyd and Erica’s second child, Derek was pretty sure there was some sort of bet going on between pack members on whether or not the births were going to be similar. From the messages sent to him while he was on shift and later woke up to, whoever bet on the complete opposite experience for baby number two won the whole kitty.

“But we still love her,” said Erica.

“Of course we still love her,” responded Boyd, as if anyone was crazy enough to doubt the love they had for their daughter.

“Here, Charlotte, let me hold you,” said Derek’s younger sister, “so Uncle Derek can properly meet your brother.”

Cora reached out for Charlotte, and the young girl didn’t protest the transfer. Laura reluctantly gave up her hold on the baby so Derek could cradle him closely.

Derek took a moment just to observe the baby as the room lulled into a peaceful quiet. His skin was a deep, rosy pink from birth, but he looked like Charlotte’s twin when she was a newborn and there wasn’t a doubt that he wouldn’t be blessed with the perfect combinations of Erica and Boyd’s features.

“He’s beautiful,” Derek said, turning to his friends still relaxing together on the bed.

“Thank you,” said Erica sincerely in return.

Boyd gave him a silent, stoic nod and wrapped his arms tighter around his wife.

Derek hadn’t really known the pair before they joined the pack, but they had been in the same grade as Cora, and she filled in the gaps about things that had happened to them at school before they were turned. And Derek knew from first hand experience that deep-seated insecurities didn’t disappear with claws and fangs.

“You know, I couldn’t figure out what you decided to name him from all the texts I was sent this morning,” Derek said, speaking to Erica and Boyd but pointedly referencing the dozens of texts he was sent from various members of the pack about the arrival of Erica and Boyd’s son, most of which came from his sisters. Derek caught Laura shrugging sheepishly from the corner of his vision.

“We decided to go with Henry,” said Boyd, with Erica quickly adding, “Henry Vernon.”

The baby, Henry, fussed in Derek’s arms like he understood the adults around him were talking about his name. 

Derek felt his lips curl into a small smile. “Hello, Henry.” He hunched over and breathed in his sweet, new baby scent that was currently deeply saturated with the scents of his parents, and let Henry have a moment to get acclimated his scent as pack too. Newborns already had a highly developed sense of smell, but it was even more amplified for newborn werewolves, and it was essential for their well being to know who was pack as soon as possible. And Derek could already feel the new pack bond worming its way to settle in with the others in the center of his chest.

When Derek straightened, Henry fussed some more and began to smack his lips together, and Derek knew his time holding him was up. He passed Henry to Erica so she could feed him and joined his sisters on the window bench. 

Charlotte crawled into his lap, and Derek used the excuse of keeping her quietly occupied so that he could at least give the couple some semblance of privacy. Laura had been right when she pointed out he was familiar with the act of breastfeeding, but that didn’t mean that he wanted to invade in a moment that he was clearly not a part of. Putting his focus on Charlotte also kept his mind from wandering into territories he didn’t want to think about but were always waiting to be acknowledged: his want for a partner, a mate, his want for a family of his own. 

Cora nudged his arms when his scent soured, and Derek shook his head to say he didn’t want to talk about why his scent changed from content-pack-family to something tinged with misery.

He was saved from further interrogation by the midwife who chose that moment to announce her presence by knocking on the entryway to the room. The elderly woman wasn’t one of them, but she was more than familiar with werewolves and supplemented her midwifery practice by offering her services to the various packs of Northern California.

“Good morning,” she greeted the room. “If your last name isn’t Boyd, I unfortunately need you to leave the room so I can finish up things with my patient. You can come back after lunch for another visit.” She paused and addressed Derek’s mother directly, “Alpha Hale, you’re welcome to stay in the hallway, if Erica is okay with it.”

“I don’t mind if you stay, Talia,” said Erica, understanding how protective Alphas could be over new mothers in a pack.

“Why don’t Sebastian and I take Charlotte out for a little bit,” his mother suggested instead. “That way you and Boyd can have some time alone with Henry, and Charlotte can have one-on-one Alpha time. I’m thinking…pancakes?”

At hearing the magic word, Charlotte tried to launch herself from Derek’s lap, and she would’ve fallen face first to the ground if Derek hadn’t used his reflexes and caught her. She scrambled over to her parents when both of her feet touched the floor.

“Can I please go with Grandma Talia and get pancakes?” she asked, using her deep brown puppy dog eyes that Derek had fallen for on many occasions.

Erica ran her free hand that wasn’t cradling Henry to her chest over Charlotte’s curls. “Yes, you can, my sweet girl.”

Boyd leaned over to draw their daughter closer so that they could each cover her head and face with kisses that left Charlotte giggling.

While the Boyd’s said a momentary goodbye to their oldest child, the rest of the pack in the room collected their personal items and slowly filed out the door. His father left first with Cora tucked into his side knowing Talia would follow with Charlotte soon.

Derek helped Laura make a final check of the room under the watchful supervision of the midwife, told Erica and Boyd he’d be back later, and kept his eyes from glancing at the room he accidentally entered as he exited his hospital side by side with his older sister.

She was quieter than she normally was, and if he wasn’t mistaken, Laura looked broodier than normal after spending hours with Erica in labor and getting to hold baby Henry. And with that, he had a feeling she’d be not so subtly dropping hints to her long time boyfriend and partner, Jack, that she wanted another child.

“Where was Olivia and Jack this morning?” asked Derek.

“At preschool,” replied Laura from the bench seat at the room’s sole window. “I promised her if she stayed the whole half-day at school, I would bring her by to see the baby with the rest of pack later this afternoon. Jack had a meeting with Satomi.”

Derek liked Jack, the adoptive grandson of his family’s closest ally, and often thought of him as a brother he never had, despite both his and Laura’s hesitancy to get mated or married. Their love and dedication was just as strong as any other pair in the pack, but because he had no ties to the Hale pack according to pack law, he still had responsibilities to uphold in the Ito pack.

And if Charlotte’s birth wasn’t surprising to the pack, Olivia’s birth more than made up for it.

For an uncountable number of generations, the firstborns of blood related Hales were always baby girls and were always a born wolf, so it was a complete shock when everyone present at the birth realized Olivia was a perfectly healthy, human girl. Derek’s mother had been adamant that it didn’t matter her first grandchild wasn’t a werewolf. But Derek remembers the weeks following his niece’s birth when his older sister was convinced she had jeopardized the future of the pack by having a human child. It had taken weeks of close-door conversations with his mother and father, Jack, and on occasion Satomi for Laura to accept she hadn’t failed as an Alpha-heir

Her love for her daughter had never wavered and she knew having a human child was just as much as a blessing to a pack than a born wolf, but doubt had come on strong and had been difficult not to believe.

“Are you happy?” Laura asked suddenly as they stood in the parking lot of the hospital.

Derek’s car was parked in a different lot, but he had followed his sister to her car without paying attention.

“Sure,” he said back. “Why are you asking?”

“I worry about you sometimes, Der. With everything that happened with-”

“Please don’t say her name,” Derek interrupted.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to make that all of this wasn’t making you sad.”

The sun was shining down from overhead, hinting at a hot day for the start of Fall, and Derek would never be sad about the happiness of his pack.

“I promise you I’m happy, Laura, and nothing that happens in the pack could change that.”

“Okay,” she said, able to hear the truth in Derek’s steady heartbeat. “I have a feeling, things are going to be changing even more soon, even for you. And I want those things to be good things.”

Derek could hear that Laura was also telling the truth.

“Me too.” 


	3. Chapter Three

Aurora Claudia Stilinski came home bright and early on a Sunday morning. The Sheriff had the morning off, Scott offered to pick them up from the hospital, and Stiles hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time the entire time she was stuck in her hospital room.

Stiles was definitely willing to admit she teared up a little when she opened the door to her childhood home and saw her dad and Melissa standing side by side in the living room that had been hastily decorated in celebration of their arrival home. She let Scott take Rory in the baby carrier so she could be wrapped up in a hug from the other adults. They stood around the carrier and cooed over Rory until Stiles yawned one too many times. She was practically shoved upstairs so she could sleep with promises that her daughter would be left in capable hands and that someone would update Alpha Hale on her behalf. Now with several weeks of parenthood under her belt and a little bit more sleep, Stiles was finally starting to feel like things were going to be okay.

Scott sat on her bed holding Rory like a football while Stiles scrambled around her room trying to find something to wear that wasn’t dirty or could be considered pajamas.

She’d been surprised how quickly the baby weight had disappeared in the short weeks since giving birth and could fit into most of her pre-baby jeans. The only indication she’d ever been pregnant at all were the stretch marks along her hips and stomach.

“You can always put off seeing the Hales for another month,” said Scott as he made funny faces at the baby in his arms.

Rory didn’t seem too enthralled by her uncle’s actions, but she continued to stay calm and occupied, for which Stiles was thankful.

“I could,” replied Stiles. “But I feel bad for having push it back a month to begin with. I made a deal with them, so I should probably act upon my word sooner rather than later.”

Stiles found a pair of worn denim jeans in a half-unpacked suitcase that had enough stretch in them to be comfortable during a night of stomping around in the woods. She scrambled into the jeans, keeping one eye on her daughter and other on the clock on her nightstand, and then she threw on the t-shirt and outer flannel layer she had found in a laundry basket of miscellaneous clean clothes.

“You’re going to be there tonight, right?” she asked Scott when she moved on to packing an old backpack that functioned as a diaper bag.

“I wouldn’t miss it, Stiles.”

From the moment they both got involved in the supernatural world their sophomore year of high school, Stiles had thought it was strange that Scott never wanted to officially be a member of the Hale Pack. He had been the only one in the group that was bitten not to formally join, but some sort of agreement was worked out with the Hales so that Scott didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to full-heartily do. He was encouraged to participate in the Hale’s full moon celebrations and as long as he didn’t threaten the safety of the territory or the Hale Pack, he was allowed to remain in Beacon Hills.

Years ago, Stiles had tried to figure out why Scott wouldn’t want to be a part of a pack and risked falling into omega status, but he had just shrugged and said it didn’t feel right. And when Stiles left to see what life was like outside of Beacon Hills, Scott stayed and kept her updated on all the relevant supernatural news. He’d been the one to mention Deaton was planning to step down as emissary for the territory, knowing Stiles had a growing reason to leave San Francisco, and put in a good word for her to Alpha Hale.

Stiles stood in the middle of her room and sighed, surveying the piles of mess spread across the small space.

Finding a place to live that wasn’t her childhood bedroom had been on her list of things to in preparation of moving back to Beacon Hills, but between discovering she was pregnant, finishing her emissary training, and eventually going into labor early, apartment hunting had fallen lower and lower on her list of things to accomplish.

The Sheriff told her every time she brought up living arrangements that she welcomed to stay at home for as long as she needed. Stiles knew her dad meant every word he said, because she knew how lonely he must have been the years she was gone. And despite his demanding job, he always made time for Grandpa and Rory cuddles.

Scott scrunched up his nose at the same time her daughter did one of her cute little baby grunts, both of which signaled a diaper change was imminent.

Stiles watched as Scott carefully stood and exited to Rory’s nursery across the hall, and she was thankful that her best friend helped her without even being asked to do anything.

The alarm set on Stiles’s phone that gave a ten-minute warning for when she wanted to be out of the door sounded before Scott returned. Stiles grabbed her emissary kit from where it had been pushed underneath her bed and the diaper bag and went to join Scott in the nursery. She saw Scott redressing Rory in the sleeper onesie she’d been dressed in the last time her diaper was changed and he added an addition outer layer to her outfit since the temperature was expected to dip once the sun set. Stiles did her final mental checks of everything that needed to be brought for her and Rory’s first extended night out and made sure to add her daughter’s favorite blankets and wrap sling that had been a godsend suggestion from Kira.

Stiles let Scott try to get her daughter to smile until a second warning alarm went off on her phone. “I’ll get the baby if you could grab my bags and put them in the jeep.”

“Sure,” replied Scott, handing transferring Rory to Stiles and stooping down to pick up the two deceivingly heavy bags.

Stiles looked down at her daughter’s serene face and was once again thankful she was such a calm baby. At the end of her pregnancy, she’d been plagued by thoughts of never-ending screaming and crying, but so far Rory was content with her existence, loved to be cuddled closely to Stiles, though she seemed to like to be held in general. And Stiles didn’t want to think of a future when her daughter decided she didn’t need her anymore and grew distant, much like Stiles had done with her own father.

She made one last lap around both levels of the house, making sure nothing had accidentally been forgotten. Scott was waiting by the front door to say goodbye so he could head out and see Kira before meeting back up with Stiles at the Hale’s full moon ceremony.

“Don’t get too caught up in making out with Kira and be late tonight,” said Stiles as she bumped shoulders with Scott and walked out onto the front porch.

Scott’s face grew the tiniest bit flushed and he quickly turned his back towards Stiles so that he could lock the front door since her hands were occupied with eight pounds of baby, while at the same time hiding the rest of his reaction from Stiles.

She was happy for her best friend and his sappy relationship with Kira, who was quickly making her way towards friend status for Stiles, but that didn’t mean Stiles was going to go easy on the teasing anytime soon.

Stiles buckled Rory into her car seat and gave Scott a brief hug before they both jumped into their respective drivers’ seats and headed in opposite directions down the street. She still had some time before she had to appear at the Hale house and figured she could eat up sometime with visit to her dad.

The Sheriff’s station has always been a second home for Stiles, even before her dad was the Sheriff, and would probably still be a second home after her dad finally decided to retire. So many of her days after school or during the summer were spent running around the bullpen, and then there were all the nights eating takeout and sleeping on the couch in the Sheriff’s office when her dad couldn’t find a last minute babysitter after her mom passed away.

Once Stiles found a parking spot, she waltzed by the front desk with a wave to the officer on duty and headed straight for her dad’s office in the back corner. Most of the deputies were out patrolling at that time of day and Stiles knew the station like the back of her hand, so it was easy to dodge any unwanted attention. This wasn’t the first time Stiles brought Rory around the station for a visit, but during the first couple outings, Stiles learned that people loved babies that were tiny and cute and quiet like Rory, and if Stiles wasn’t careful, she would be stuck for hours watching others fawn over her child. It was flattering the first two times it happened, but it was quickly becoming a nuisance she rather avoid, especially since she had somewhere else to be.

“I thought I said you didn’t have to bug me about cases until you officially start working tomorrow,” said her father in place of a more traditional greeting. He didn’t take his attention away from the stack of reports he was signing off on until Stiles plopped down in one of the chairs in front of his desk and placed Rory in her car seat carrier in the other.

“You did, and I’m not here about any cases,” she replied. “But is there something I should know about?”

Stiles was ready to start her new job as a remote research consultant for the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Department once her maternity leave was up. She began offering her services and occasionally her specialized expertise to the various police stations in San Francisco and found it put her degrees in History to good use.

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

Stiles nodded and didn’t press her dad any further, glancing over at Rory to make sure she was still fine chilling in her carrier. She usually didn’t like being left in it for long periods of time, but Stiles was sure there was some kind of baby related magic or science that went with Rory hearing voices she was familiar with.

The Sheriff stared at her for a moment and then shifted in his seat so he could get a better view of his granddaughter. He checked the clock on the wall behind Stiles and asked, “don’t you have to be at the Hales in seventeen minutes?”

“Yeah.”

“It takes at least fifteen minutes just to drive to the persevere from here, and you definitely went out of your way if you came from the house.”

“Can’t a girl stop in and say hi to her dad?”

“Not when that girl is you. What do you want, Stiles?”

Her dad didn’t look annoyed with her. If anything, Stiles thought he looked a little concerned.

“You know Alpha Hale’s invitation extended to you too, right?” she asked.

The Sheriff was the one to nod this time.

“I’ve talked to Talia several times about tonight’s ceremony and your involvement, and I’m so proud of want you’re about to do, but for my own peace of mind I need to stay here and do my job.”

Even though Stiles really wanted someone else with her as she ventured into the heart of the Hale territory, she understood her dad’s reasoning for turning down the invitation to participate in the fast approaching ceremony that Stiles would be leading. Ever since she was in high school and her dad learned about her involvement in what all goes bump in the night in Beacon Hills, he insisted he worked the night shift during full moons, or at the very least be first on call in case anything were to happen that the Hales couldn’t handle on their own.

“Okay,” she said, standing up from her seat. “I thought I’d stop by and ask one last time before I went over there.”

The Sheriff stood too and stepped around from behind his desk to pull Stiles in close, like she was a small child again. He kissed her on the forehead before letting her go and leaning over to leave a matching kiss on Rory’s hat covered head.

“Be safe tonight,” he said as a goodbye.

“I will.”

“And let me know when you get home, okay?”

Stiles left with a promise to text her dad throughout the night, gathered her things and Rory, and snuck back though the station without any interruptions.

The main Hale house sat off a long, winding private road deep within the Beacon Hills Preserve, and when Stiles finally arrived, only a few minutes later than initially intended, the front yard was already occupied by several cars that belonged to various members of the Pack. She didn’t see Scott’s car, but he still had some time before he’d need to be at the house. Stiles had been informed the night would start with dinner in the backyard and a brief pack meeting, and then once the sun set, the wolves would have their run which would be concluded with Stiles’s ceremony that would mark the beginning of her ties to the Hale pack and the land they protected.

Stiles was sure her presence was made known before she even turned onto the private drive but appreciated the semblance of space and once last moment of quiet before she entered a literal den of werewolves. Besides the rigid car seat carrier Rory was still strapped into and the diaper backpack, she left everything else she brought in the car, figuring could get her emissary and baby-adjacent things as needed.

She took a steadying breath and hoisted the handle of the carrier up, so it rested in the crook of her elbow. No one had come out to greet her yet, which left her no option but to claim the few stairs of the porch and knock on the front door. Stiles closed her free hand into a fist and rapped her knuckles on the solid door loud enough for a house full of werewolves to hear. She waited to hear the sounds of footsteps approaching from the other side of the door and thought she saw a curtain covering one of the front windows move in her peripheral vision, but didn’t have time to dwell on it since the door swung open without warning.

Standing in front of Stiles, with a hand still clutching the inside handle of the door, was the man who had accidentally stumbled into her room at the hospital. Of course he had to be a Hale.

Too many awkward seconds passed of them just staring at each other in surprise, which of course meant, Rory took that exact moment to begin crying. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to be somewhat consistence with updates, but I'm a full time student and life is always crazy. 
> 
> I'm also sorta looking for a beta for this story so if you're interested pls let me know!!


	4. Chapter Four

Derek froze when he realized his pack’s new emissary was the young woman from the hospital. Then the baby started to cry, and several things happened faster than Derek could process them. The woman’s eyes drop down to her child in the carrier, she shifted it to hang off her other arm, and when she hypothesized that the baby, a daughter, was due for a feeding, Cora appeared silently behind him to half yell “Stilinski!” in greeting before gently guiding the new emissary deeper into the house. Derek was left alone in the entryway with the front door still open to the setting sun. And the rest of the realizations came at him all at once.

The pack’s emissary was Stiles Stilinski.

Her name was one he hadn’t heard years, and he hadn’t seen her face in even longer, which makes Derek feel slightly better for not recognizing her during the run in at the hospital. But now he definitely had to make sure neither of his sisters found out about that incident, because if they did, they would never let him live it down.

The last Derek ever spoke directly to Stilinski had been on the worst night of his entire life. He sat on a bench at the station, waiting to give a statement to a recently elected Sheriff Stilinski about his relationship to Kate Argent, when she sat next to him and asked if everyone was okay. She’d been a kid then, a few years younger than his fifteen. And Derek will always remember the way she hugged her knees up on the bench, and how he noticed the fact that her pajamas were torn in places and her feet covered in dirt but the too big jacket covering her shoulders was perfectly clean.

He learned after that night, that Stiles had been the one to prevent Kate from burning his entire family alive as they slept. His mother told him that Stiles had somehow sleepwalked miles through the Preserve in the middle of the night, straight to the heart of the Hale territory, and woke the house up with her screams about a fire. Talia called the Sheriff, who’d been already searching for his missing daughter, and when she tried to leave the house to bring Stiles out of the cold, she realized they were trapped. Mountain ash ringed the house, and the tunnels leading out from the basement had been blocked too. His mother said she was powerless to do anything but watch as Kate Argent stepped from the shadows, taunting them, and used Stiles’s helplessness to prevent them fighting further.

Young Stiles had chosen that moment to wake, and in a panicked attempt to get away from the monster trying to kill her, unknowingly scuffed the mountain ash line just enough for it to break. Peter was the one to subdue Kate, but he didn’t kill her because of orders from the Alpha and the growing sound of police sirens in the distance.

Derek had stumbled on to the scene of almost devastation in time to see a hysterical Kate being loaded into the back of the Sheriff’s car and saw the unreadable look on his Alpha’s face, his mother’s face, and confessed right then to his involvement with the older woman. His mother wrapped him in the tightest hug he had ever felt and cried with him.

The name Stiles Stilinski didn’t enter his life until years later when the rouge Alpha came to town and turned several teenagers, including Stiles’s best friend, Scott McCall, who was a different kind of problem to deal with. For a long time, Derek heard Stiles’s name attached to eye rolls and huffs from his younger sister, always complaining that the human was constantly getting herself into trouble and sticking her head into places it didn’t belong. But then things quieted in Beacon Hills, Derek avoided McCall as much as he avoided the rest of them, and slowly he stopped hearing her name and he could put everything in a little box in the back of his brain. 

Derek was knocked out of his thoughts when Cora reappeared.

"So are you just going to stand there all night?" she asked.

He closed the front door without giving her the satisfaction of an answer and trooped off to reconvene with the rest of his pack deeper in the house. If he let himself, he could hear Stiles talking softly to her daughter while she nursed in one of the upstairs bedrooms that had been turned into a nursery back when Charlotte and Olivia had been born and was now maintained for new children of the pack. But he didn't do that. He'd already invaded Stiles's privacy and knew humans, even ones connected to packs, didn't always appreciate a wolf's advantage over them in hearing and smelling.

The majority of his pack lounged on couches in the living room or had spilled into the kitchen in a subtle sign that they were both growing restless and growing hungrier. Derek took an empty seat next to Laura and Jack, and Cora quickly squeezed her way between the arm of the couch so she could sandwich Derek in. Olivia popped her head up from where she clung tightly to both her parents. Even if Olivia had been born wolf, she’d be too young to shift, but she would still feel the connection to the moon and the pack. As a human, raised in pack, Derek assumed she still felt a part of that connection, or at least understood the importance of the full moon to the rest of her family.

Boyd and Erica occupied another couch with their two children cuddled close to them too. This would be Henry’s first official full moon, and so far everyone, especially Erica, was pleased with how relaxed he was staying. Charlotte’s first handful of full moons had been stressful because she restlessly cried the whole night, and not even her parents or her alpha could calm her. Now she was contently curled up against Boyd’s broad chest and making funny faces at her baby brother.

Derek made eye contact with Erica when she looked up from her children. She raised an eyebrow that was all too similar to something his sisters would do. He shook his head, and Erica let whatever she was thinking go. 

The open floor plan of the house and the angle of the couch made it easy for Derek to soak up the feeling of being surround by immediate pack members.

His parents stood side by side in the kitchen talking softly. And he could hear the bickering of Isaac, Malia, and Jackson, who flew in for the occasion, as they were tasked with finishing setting up the back yard and deck for later in the night. Peter was outside too, supposedly supervising. Other people associated with the pack would be arriving at any moment.

The top step at the second-floor landing minutely creaking and everyone’s head involuntarily snapped up in the direction of the noise.

Derek looked up too and saw Stiles standing there, one hand on the banister and other resting on the back of her daughter attached to her chest by a cloth sling. She quickly noticed everyone looking in her direction and marched down the steps. When she reached the last step, she stared back at everyone looking at her before directing her attention to his mother.

“When are we eating?” she asked, “Because I’m absolutely starving right now.”

Derek tensed at how informally Stiles spoke to his mother as an Alpha of a pack.

But after a moment, his mother just smiled warmly at Stiles. “We can eat whenever you’d like. We were waiting for you.”

Stiles shrugged one shoulder and replied, “Then let’s go.”

Derek’s pack surged up and to the kitchen where platters of food, enough to feed a pack as large as theirs, were being kept warm. Stiles was allowed to go first and fill a plate since she was the honored guest for the night, and Peter offered to carry her plate for her so that she could keep her hands free. Erica and Laura went next because they had children, followed by their partners. The rest of the Betas, including Derek, filed in next, and the procession through the kitchen was ended with his parents as the Alpha-couple and Peter who circled back after helping Stiles find a seat outside.

Derek wasn’t going to admit that the was avoiding Stiles, but every time he looked at her, he was reminded of that night he spent years of his life trying his hardest to forget. So, he picked a table as far away as he could get from her and let the feeling of being with his pack swallow him back up and focused his attention of the growing anticipation of the coming full moon run.

In the midst of letting Charlotte and Olivia playfully wrestle him in the grass to give their parents a chance to eat seconds in peace, Derek caught sight of Stiles holding court at one of the many wooden picnic tables spread across the lawn, surrounded by all the younger Betas she attended school with. He hadn’t even noticed McCall arriving. Whatever awkwardness that had existed between her and his pack when she first arrived at the house had dissipated and was replaced by nostalgic laughter.

Olivia’s elbow caught Derek in the stomach at the same time Charlotte paused and wrinkled her nose.

“Uncle Derek,” she said, “why do you smell sour? Are you okay?”

Derek sat up and grabbed Charlotte around the waist and tickled her until she was laughing too.

“I’m okay, Little Bug. Just thinking about grown up things.”

“Well then don’t do that!” replied Charlotte.

“Yeah!” Olivia added. “Think about happy things!”

Derek felt the corners of his mouth lift at the sincerity of the two young girls and counted down the minutes until sunset and the run would begin. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I realized the other day that I used the name Charlotte in my other teen wolf kidfic but oh well
> 
> 2) A shorter update this time around. But as I was roughly planning out what's going to happen in this fic, I realized this could get pretty long so we'll see what happens! 
> 
> 3) I love Derek Hale so much


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!! I'm alive (if barely) and the semester definitely kicked my ass. My goal is to now write as much as I can before school starts again for the spring.
> 
> This chapter turned out longer than I expected, and I hope everyone enjoys!!

There were certain rules Stiles had to follow until she officially bonded with the Hale Pack, and most of them were due to the fact that she also had a child. For instance, no one from the pack was allowed to scent mark her or Rory until after the ceremony which meant that Stiles was also the only one allowed to hold her daughter throughout the night. Scott was in a little bit of a grey area when it came to being a member of the Hale Pack, but he understood the need for caution and agreed that while they were at the Hale House before the bonding, he would go Rory-less.

So far it hadn’t been much of a hassle. Beyond the hunger induced crying bout when first arriving at the house, Rory reverted to her content self, wrapped securely to Stiles’s chest by the cloth sling. And Stiles could eat with both hands free and enjoy the strangeness that was reconnecting with the members of the pack she went to high school with. Scott might have kept her updated, but Stiles quickly realized he had left so much out.

Like how Cora was still snarky and had the trademark Hale Murder Glare but was overall less sharp. Boyd and Erica were full on married and had not one but two precious children, who weren’t as perfect as Rory but came pretty close. And Isaac was almost unrecognizable in all the ways he had change.

When Stiles had a private moment to talk to Scott, she was immediately going to ask him about his poor job at informing her about what was happening in Beacon Hills. Not warning her about Derek Hale warranted its own conversation far away from prying werewolf ears.

Plates and cups were refilled when they got low, and during a lull in the conversation, Erica stood from the table to check on how her children were fairing as the moon rose in the sky.

Stiles could see the older Boyd child, Charlotte, fully occupied in playing with Derek and Laura’s daughter on the far side of the backyard, closest to the tree line of the preserve. Henry was conked out in Alpha Hale’s arms, and when Erica offered to take her son back, Talia shooed her back to her seat. And Stiles was glad that if everything worked out with the Hale Pack, her daughter would grow with kids close to her own age within the safety of the pack.

Erica returned to sit beside her husband in the vacated seat across from Stiles and sigh, grumbling that neither of her children loved her anymore.

Boyd shrugged, joking in his own way, and took a bite from what Stiles thought was his third serving of lasagna.

“I’ve found at this age,” Stiles said gesturing to Rory in her sling, “they love just about anyone, especially when there’s boobs involved.”

Erica burst out into laughter and then laughed harder at the uncomfortable looks on Isaac’s and Jackson’s faces.

“I can’t believe we gave birth at the same time,” said Erica when she stopped laughing. “I’m pretty sure I still have baby weight from Charlotte, despite being a werewolf, and you don’t even look like you were ever pregnant!”

Stiles could have spent the rest of the night detailing all the ways she thought Erica was one of the most beautiful women she had ever known. Stiles thought Erica had the kind of full breasts and thick thighs that deserved hourly worship, and Stiles’s body had gone back to looking like she was a broke grad student who had regularly forgot to eat meals while getting caught up in research. At least with moving back in with her dad and being constantly ravenous from breastfeeding she never missed the chance for food anymore.

Stiles ended up saying instead, “I think it’s all the yoga I’ve been doing. My birthing doula also owns her own studio and invited me to a few classes when I mentioned not being able to take my anxiety meds anymore.”

“Are you talking about Kira?” asked Erica.

Stiles nodded. “Last week I got the times mixed up, but she let me sit in on the barre class that was meeting. And I think it was worse than going through hours of labor.”

“Derek and I have taken a few Pilates classes there,” Boyd said. “She’s cool.”

Stiles promptly ignored the image forming in her brain by checking to see if Rory was good, since she had been quiet for a while, and waiting for someone else to say something.

Cora saved her. “I’ve heard Mom mention the possibility of an alliance with the Yukimuras a few times. It might be easy now when Stiles becomes the official Pack Emissary.”

“I’d love to help,” Stiles replied, a touch too quickly. 

No one seemed to notice.

Rory also choose that moment to fuss in the way that usually meant things were about to become incredible smelly, so she made her excuses and left the table to discuss the finer points of person fitness while having supernatural abilities.

Stiles took advantage of the silent house and the routine of changing a diaper, taking time to breathe deeply. The bonding ceremony would begin soon, and it would require her full attention.

Stiles took advantage for as long as she thought she could get away with, and then left the nursery to head to the backyard. She was confused for a moment when she stepped onto the back porch and saw the tables had been cleared and most of the pack standing and gathering together to one side, until she spotted a head of long, red hair. Then her confusion turned to excitement.

"Lydia?" said Stiles, half questioning, half yelling.

The woman in question turned, found Stiles on the porch, and gave her a bright smile in return. Lydia was really the only person besides Scott that Stiles had bothered to keep in contact with, especially since they both decided to leave Beacon Hills. Their friendship grew from mutual respect and understanding of one another, since they were unexpectedly thrown into the supernatural world and both came out a little less human than originally believed. And now they were both going to be tied to the Hale Pack.

"I thought you weren't coming until Christmas?" continued Stiles.

Lydia disentangled herself from the attention of the pack and met Stiles halfway. She brushed her hair away from her face in a motion Stiles could never replicate.

"That was the plan," she said, "but I changed my mind last minute and thought I could support you tonight. I also decided I couldn't wait until Christmas to meet this beautiful girl."

Lydia carefully pushed aside the edge of the sling to see Rory's face without touching her or Stiles.

"Thank you for being here.”

Lydia smiled again. “Of course.”

“Now that everyone is here,” Alpha Hale said, drawing attention to her, “we can start the rest of the night’s activities. Stiles, do you have everything you need?”

Stiles winked at Lydia and mouth the words _we’ll talk later _to her. “My kit’s in the car.”

Before Stiles or Talia could say anything else, Scott took off around the side of the car to grab the bag that Stiles needed. So, Stiles went to stand by Talia's side and didn't waver under the full gaze of the pack while they waited for Scott. She could feel the air around the pack growing heavy with anticipation and intention, and she wander what it felt like for the wolves, with the energy surging through the pack bonds in preparation for new ones to be added. Scott returned with bag that contained Stiles’s emissary things slung over a shoulder and tried to take the Rory’s diaper bag too, but Stiles was too stubborn to give it up.

The pack gathered in a few steps closer, seemingly unconsciously, to where she stood. And Stiles could see a few of the wolves just waiting for the moment to shift.

The sun had just slipped below the tree line and soon the last of the evening’s light would disappear. Stiles hoped the walk to the clearing where the ceremony would take place wasn’t a long one, because she had no interest stumbling her way through the dark woods, even if she had plenty of escorts that could see perfectly fine.

With a silent signal from Talia, the pack shuffled into a rough line by groups, with Stiles and the Alpha leading, in a similar but reversed order to how dinner was served. Talia’s husband, three children, and grandchild were first in line behind them, followed closely by the other Betas: Boyd with Charlotte, Erica with Henry, and Isaac. Lydia, Scott, and Jack stood in a cluster together as trusted guests and allies of the pack. And bringing up the rear was Peter as the Alpha’s right hand, and Jackson and Malia, since they were his children.

Stiles knew from Scott that full moon runs weren’t normally this formal in terms of respecting traditional pack hierarchy, but because of the special occasion, yet more rules had to be observed.

Soon enough, Talia stopped the group at the entrance to clearing deep into the preserve, and there was just enough light to see the most important element to the whole night, the enormous stump of the Nemeton. Stiles knew of several other Nemeta that existed around the whole but very few emissaries ever had the chance to be a protector over one, even a dormant one like in Beacon Hills. The Emissary Council had been hesitant to grant her the permission to seek out the position as Pack Emissary to the Hales so soon after finishing her training, but she had more than proved her abilities. And that had been when she wasn’t even at full strength because of the pregnancy.

The pack spread around the clearing to give her space to set up, and she traded bags with Scott so that she had access to everything in her kit. In an ideal situation, someone would also take the baby, allowing Stiles to move more freely, but instead she just had to make sure jostle around too much as she placed the objects in her bag in their correct place along the surface of the stump. The ceremony didn’t require much in terms of material things, since most of it was dependent on Stiles herself and the connection she would form with the Hale Pack and the land they watched over.

“I’m ready,” Stiles said after she lit the last candle.

A soft, warm glow filled the clearing as the sky turned a deeper shade of blue and moon took the place of the sun.

Talia nodded in acknowledgement, and the pack fell back together in a tighter group from where they had waiting.

“Tonight on this wonderful full moon,” she began without needing to raise her voice, “we not only gather in celebration of the strength of the pack and the blessings that are brought to us by new additions, but we gather to welcome Emissary Stilinski as our Pack Emissary and look forward to prosperity and security for years to come.”

Then Talia, acting as Alpha of the pack, moved to stand in front of Erica and gently lifted Henry from his mother’s arms.

“Welcome, Henry,” Talia said and flashed her crimson eyes at him in the gesture of an Alpha recognizing and accepting a Beta. When Henry cooed and blew a spit bubble in response, ripples of soft laughter echoed through the clearing.

Stiles felt the trees sigh.

Talia passed Henry to the next member of the pack and the process was repeated again and again. Next it would be Rory and Stiles’s turn, though with a slight alteration due to Stiles’s unique relationship to the pack.

Stiles un-knotted the wrap, swaddled her daughter in a spare blanket, and waiting for everyone’s attention to be directed at her.

Talia stepped up to where Stiles stood by the Nemeton, and her face only remained serious-looking for a moment before it morphed to an expressed filled with respect.

“Welcome, Stiles,” she said and placed a hand along the back of Stiles’s uncovered neck, an action for claiming through scent marking and a symbol of trust. And then she said, “welcome, Aurora,” gently resting the same hand over the top of the baby’s hat-less head. The rest of the adults present followed suit, many of the them copying Talia’s exact steps. Scott and Lydia threw in tight hugs and kisses on checks out of familiarity and comfort. And as soon as the last person formally greeted Stiles and Rory, Talia howled and the shifters participating in the customary run bolted for the surrounding trees, shedding layers as they went.

There would be some time before the moon was in an optimal position for the next stage of the night, so Stiles alternated between pacing circles and sitting cross legged on the stump in preparation.

Lydia kept her permanent company during the wait, while others filtered in and out of clearing. She offered to hold Rory to give Stiles a break, and Stiles gladly accepted, knowing that her daughter would wake up soon anyway needed to eat. Erica and Boyd switched out who stayed with Henry and who went out with Charlotte, Laura and Jack doing a similar thing with their daughter, until the young girls tired themselves out and decided to fall asleep side-by-side under the moonlight in a patch of soft grass. Sometimes the only hint a wolf had come to check in on the pack members in the clearing were pairs of glowing eyes staring out from the darkness. When Rory woke up and began to cry, Stiles took her back from Lydia so that she could be fed.

Another howl sounded through the woods. It was time.

In less than a minute, the pack was regrouped in the clearing in a loose ring around the Nemeton, breathing deeply and still rumbling with unreleased energy. Rory was back in her sling, snuggled up against Stile’s chest, and Henry had been placed in a swaddle next to Charlotte and Olivia on their makeshift palette of blankets and discarded jackets.

Stiles stepped onto the wide stump and rotated in a small circle, making eye contact with everyone as she turned. She tried not to do anything weird when she held Derek’s gaze.

“Thank you again, for choosing me as your Pack Emissary,” Stiles said, aware of all the sleeping children. “For this next part, I need everyone to be a quiet as possible so that I can focus. And I while I’m working, I also need everyone to concentrate on the pack bonds. Picture them in your head, connecting us all together and making us strong.”

The pack nodded with sureness.

“Here we go.” Stiles closed her eyes and began at the top of her head. She breathed in and out, and in again, calming her heart, and sliding the point of focus down her spine to her ribs and to the bright spot of warmth where her daughter rest against her chest. She focused on her legs standing strong and her feet planted firmly onto the Nemeton, and when she breathed again and dove even deeper into the ground and into herself, she could see the stands of the pack bond tangling everyone together and reaching out into the woods beyond. Some of the bonds were thicker than others, varying depending on time since the bond’s creation and nature of the bond. Overall, she was pleased with what she found.

But then she noticed something that didn’t belong, a loose stand hidden in a knot of the Nemeton’s roots. She studied it closer and came to the conclusion that it was too old to have been created since Stiles’s presence there and that it hadn’t been accidentally severed from any of the existing bonds the Hale Pack had to the tree. And that meant the Nemeton wasn’t as dormant as it should have been.

Stiles knew it needed to be removed as quickly as possible. The moment she reached to tug it out from between the root, an opposing wave of energy shot up her arm, like static shock but in the form a lightening strike. She lost hold of the thread, and the bonds faded away as her eyes fluttered open. But the sudden wake of the malignant energy left her head reeling and the world in front of her began to spin.

She had just enough forethought not to fall forward as she swayed before everything went completely black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes: 
> 
> In this universe, Jackson and Malia are half siblings and share Peter as a father. Jackson was still adopted by the Whittemores after his mother died in a car accident while pregnant, since a father was unknown/no immediate family could be found. It wasn't until the rogue alpha came to town and Jackson was one of the kids bite that his wolf, which had been suppressed from trauma, woke up and the Hales realized there was suddenly a new pack bond. 
> 
> A year or so after Jackson discovered his biological family and joined the pack with the other new betas, Malia showed up on the steps of the Hale house saying Peter was her dad, after her mother, The Desert Wolf, decided she was too much of a burden to deal with anymore. And since Malia was a coyote shifter and not a wolf, her familial bonds never formed properly until she officially joined the pack. 
> 
> Peter was teased for a while over his promiscuity when he was younger and the surprise of having not one but two teenage children. But overall everyone was happy with the growth to the pack.


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a short chapter from Derek's POV that I wrote instead of working on my finals. Rip

When Stiles told the pack to focus on the bonds, Derek didn’t even have to search for the feeling of them resting in his chest.

He had felt them grow stronger and clearer from being with his pack and his family on the full moon, and they only grew even more defined when Henry, Stiles, and Rory were formally inducted into the Hale Pack. Something had shifted within the bonds when Stiles was added, but Derek knew is was a good thing. Stiles made the pack stronger as their emissary, but they as the pack also made her stronger. And the feedback loop was almost overwhelming.

Running with his pack and releasing his wolf helped dispel some of the pent-up energy, and when his mother called to reconvene at the Nemeton so that Stiles could continue the ceremony, Derek almost hadn’t wanted to shift back. He had felt _good_ and like himself, and he hadn’t felt that in a very long time.

Derek stood between his sisters around the Nemeton and watched as Stiles worked in center of the large stump that she had decorated with things Derek didn’t know the purpose of earlier in the night. She closed her eyes, and he thought of his pack. And as the seconds ticked by, Stiles drew stiller and stiller, and the ambient noise of the woods dimmed too. First it was the nocturnal birds that went silent, and quickly followed by all the night-time bugs he was used to hearing. Then Derek could no longer hear any of the larger animals that roamed the woods at night. And the light breeze stopped, and the trees went still, and Derek didn’t want to take his eyes off Stiles to see if anyone else shared his realization.

So, he let himself get pulled under the feeling of being with his pack.

Time seemed to stretch on as Stiles explored the bonds to the pack and the territory, and nothing changed in the clearing until a crease formed between Stiles’s closed eyes and her lips slowly pulled down to form a concerning frown.

Her previously solid form shuttered as a shock rippled through the pack bond, causing a chain reaction in its wake. The sounds that had disappeared flooded back in a cacophony, matched by distressed whines from the children being abruptly woken up. Derek made eye contact with Cora as Laura pulled Olivia into her arms and shushed her cries, and his mother jerked to attention as worry and fear seeped into bonds.

Whispered questions that no one had answers to joined the other noises in the clearing, but from the other side of the stump, Derek saw Lydia grow quiet and pale, staring at nothing, and he knew that something had gone very, very wrong.

Stiles rocked on her feet, and her eyes fluttered rapidly as if she couldn’t hold them open long enough to wake up. She swayed the other way, half unconscious, and when she finally lost her balance, anyone without their hands already occupied lunged forward to catch her.

Derek got to her first.

Her eyes fluttered again as he carefully lowered Stiles to the ground, aware that Rory was still in the sling. She mumbled something Derek couldn’t understand, and her fists clenched at nothing before fell fully unconscious.

Scott appeared at Derek’s, working the sling off Stiles and securely grabbing a hold of Rory’s tiny squirming body. The baby screamed as she was separated from her mother. 

Derek didn’t know what else to do as her cradled Stiles’s upper body against his and was grateful when his mother appeared at his other side. She placed her hands on Stiles’s forehead and cheek, and then over her heart.

“Stiles is going to be okay,” his mother said, and the pack let out a collective breath in relief. “She’s fainted, but whatever caused it has passed. With some rest, she should wake up on her own. Can you carry her back to the house, Derek?”

He nodded, the tangle of complicated emotions running through his head making it difficult to speak.

“Someone needs to call the Sheriff,” Scott said, rocking Rory his is arms to calm her. 

“We can do that once she’s comfortable at the house,” his mother replied.

Derek waited to stand while tasks were delegated, so that no trace was left of the pack at the Nemeton. And when the pack began to quickly make there way to the house, Derek carried Stiles with one arm under her bent knees and the other against her shoulders, tucking her head into the bend of his next so that it wasn’t strained or jostled as he walked. Scott, holding a now fitfully sleeping Rory, followed closely beside him, posturing over his friend, as if Derek would ever do anything to harm Stiles in her already vulnerable state.

From this close to her, Derek took in a lungful of her unique scent with every inhale. It reminded him of the scent of fallen leaves that covered the ground of the preserve when summer turned to fall, but it was run through with something sharp and distinctly magical. On top of her base scent were layers of familial sweetness from Rory and the Sheriff. He tried not to get stuck on her scent the rest of the way.

When he could see this lights from the pack house through branches and leaves, he hurried is pace. Stiles was lanky but she wasn’t particularly heavy, so he could have carried her longer, but under Scott’s watchful eye, he didn’t want to be responsible for Stiles’s bodily safety for any longer than he had to. Cora and Isaac had run ahead of the group to find a second crib and prep a bedroom for Stiles’s immediate stay. His mother had already said that the pack was staying the night too, until they had more information about what happened to Stiles. Lydia and Scott had not obligation to stay, but Derek knew they had no plans to leave until Stiles woke up.

Cora met him at the bottom of the stairs inside the house and directed him to the bedroom across the hall from the nursery. He stayed long enough to watch Lydia unlace Stiles’s shoes and peel off her outer coat, before she tucked the comforter close to Stiles’s body and brushed loose strands of hair away from her face.

He was clearly no longer needed and left without a word.

In the hall, he could hear Scott moving around behind the closed door of the nursery and Cora and Isaac talking softly to one another behind a different door. Somewhere else within the house, Laura and Jack, and Erica and Boyd were settling down and comforting their children after the eventful night. Peter had volunteered himself, Jackson, and Malia to run the territory’s perimeter in case the disturbance attracted unwanted, supernatural attention. Without anything else giving to him to do, he wandered downstairs to the kitchen, too keyed up to sleep.

His father found him sitting in the half dark with an untouched glass of water on the bar in front of him.

“Where’s Mom?” asked Derek.

“She’s still in the study trying to convince the Sheriff that he doesn’t need to come over until the morning when he’s more rested.”

Derek could picture the normally well-tempered Sheriff rampaging around the station after receiving a phone call saying his daughter had passed out during a ceremony that shouldn’t have had any risk.

“Is he angry?”

“I think he’s more scared for his only child than angry,” his dad answered, “but either way, I’m glad your mother is Alpha and not me.”

Derek would have smiled at his dad’s attempt to lighten the mood if he wasn’t so suddenly exhausted. His dad wrapped him in a tight hung without Derek needing to ask, and for the second time that night, Derek felt like a child, but not in the same way he had felt before.

“You should head to bed soon. It’s been a long day, and tomorrow will be long too.” He squeezed Derek’s shoulder after pulling away and let a hand linger on the side of his next in a silent gesture of love, before leaving Derek alone in the quiet kitchen.

Derek followed the sounds of his father’s footsteps through the house as he made his way to the master bedroom, set his glass in the sink, and found an empty bed to crash in. His dad was right, tomorrow was going to be a long day.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!!! Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive of this story. It's incredibly self indulgent, but I wouldn't be as incentivized to write it without you guys. Early Bird is quickly becoming one of my most popular fics. I'm so happy you seem to love it as much as I do!

The first thing Stiles noticed as she slowly rose from unconsciousness was how bright the room was, even with her eyes still closed, and then she noticed how impossibly soft the pillow under her head was, and the weight of the blankets holding her down onto the bed. She rolled over onto her stomach and was tempted to drift back off to sleep when the painful ache in her breasts sent a panicked reminder of the night’s events running through her brain. Stiles fought against her bone deep to open her eyes and against the tangle of sheets wrapped around her body to sit up in the bed she was in.

When her eyes adjusted to the flood of brightness that filled the room, she saw Lydia watching her intently from an arm chair pull from the corner of the room so that it was within arm’s reach of the bed.

“Where’s Rory?” Stiles asked, rubbing her chest before realizing it made the situation worse. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine, Stiles. The Hales have been watching her while you’ve been asleep.”

“How long was I out?”

Lydia glanced at her phone forgotten in her lap for the time. “Almost fourteen hours.”

“What?” replied Stiles. She tried shifting more to scoot out of bed, but her limbs were not wanting to follow her commands. “I haven’t slept that long since…since middle school.”

Lydia stood from the chair and helped settle Stiles more comfortable in the bed, propping her up on a mountain of pillows and untangling the blankets and sheets from around her body. If Stiles had the energy, she would have laughed at the image of Lydia Martin fretting over her. The Stiles back in high school would have never believed it.

“You body needed that time to recover. How are you feeling now?” asked Lydia

Stiles did a quick internal evaluation and let out a sigh that verged on a wince. Her spark seemed undamaged from the surge of energy she was hit with on the Nemeton, but her body ached. “Like I got hit by a truck, but it could be worse.”

Her friend gave her a disapproving frown.

“So,” Stiles began in order to change the subject, “can I have my baby back now?”

Lydia’s face relaxed into something more neutral, and she unfolded herself from the chair beside the bed again. “I’ll go get her.”

Before she could fully exit the room, Stiles called out in realization, “hey, where’s Scott?”

Lydia paused in the doorway, one hand still on the doorknob. “He was here through most of the morning,” she replied. “He left right before you woke up to run interference with your dad. They should both be here soon.”

Stiles groan at the thought of facing her dad. Technically, she had been safe- right up to the point when she passed out. But something _had_ happened out in the woods, and she imagined her dad’s worst fears were confirmed when he was told she would be unexpectedly spending the night at the Hale house.

The bedroom door opened before Stiles could get too worked up. Lydia entered, holding Rory, and Laura followed in closely behind, carrying a large bowl of something steaming hot and delicious smelling.

“I was just making her a bottle,” Laura said. “I can go get it if you’re not up for feeding her.”

“No, it’s okay. I’ve actually gotten pretty good at this type of multitasking. Let me just-“ Stiles leaned forward to grab a thick pillow for her lap, shrugged off a shoulder of her t-shirt, and leaned back against pillows again. And because she knew it would make Lydia roll her eyes, Stiles made grabby hands at her until she had her daughter in her arms. Stiles motioned for Laura to join her on the bed once Rory was securely latched. She held the bowl up so Stiles could eat one-handily. Lydia reclaimed her spot in the chair.

The room was relatively quiet for the first few moments everyone was settled, the only sounds coming from Rory’s little grunts, and the metal spoon in Stiles’s hand clinking against the earthenware bowl.

“Oh my god, this is amazing,” said Stiles after swallowing a particularly large mouthful of chicken, rice, and sauce.

“It’s Japanese curry courtesy of Jack, and there’s always a stockpile of it here at the main house,” replied Laura. “Everyone was too concerned about you to worry about cooking.” 

“Remind me to thank him then. And I guess I should thank everyone else for taking care of Rory too.” Stiles had noticed her daughter had been dressed in an unfamiliar onesie, and she knew for sure that she hadn’t packed any bottles or formula in the diaper bag.

Laura shrugged without jostling the bowl. “Pack takes care of pack, and you and Rory are pack now, remember?”

“Well, thank you anyway,” Stiles insisted and then shoved another spoonful of savory goodness into her mouth.

“Of course,” replied Laura.

When Stiles had finished eating and switched Rory to the other side, she asked, “do you know what happened after I blacked out?”

“No one knew what was happening, but Derek caught you before you could fall,” answered Lydia. “Then he carried you back to the house while Scott had Rory. Everyone spent the night here, and we’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

“Derek caught me?” Stiles said in surprise, more from the sense that he had been avoiding her than his lack of strength.

“Anyone would have, but he was the closest to you,” said Laura, and Stiles thought she heard something weird in her tone.

“The more important question is,” stated Lydia, “why did you pass out in the first place?”

Stiles shook her head and said, “I don’t know, but I need to figure that out.”

“A meeting’s already been called for today, whenever you’re ready,” Laura said. “Though we should probably wait for the Sheriff and Scott to get here before we start. I know they’ll want to be involved.”

Stiles snickered to herself and said, “I think that’s an understatement.”

She yawned and lifted Rory upright against her shoulder for a second burp, but Laura set the empty bowl down and gestured for Stiles to pass her the baby.

“I can burp my own child, you know,” said Stiles.

“No one said you couldn’t,” said Lydia in return.

“Like I said before,” Laura stated as she motioned again for Stiles to hand Rory to her, “you’re both pack, which means you don’t have to do everything by yourself anymore. You’re allow to have help.”

Stiles looked to Lydia for backup, but her friend arched an eyebrow and gave her a look that meant she sided with Laura.

“Why don’t you take a quick shower while we’re waiting for everyone?” Laura continued. “Lydia and I can take care of this, and I’ll have Cora find a clean change of clothes for you.”

“Are you now telling me I smell bad?” Stiles said, trying to joke.

Both women gave her looks. Apparently, she had lost her ability to be funny when she passed out.

Stiles groaned. “Fine, fine!”

Rory exchanged embraces, and Stiles heaved herself out of bed and stumbled into the hallway before she realized she didn’t know where the bathroom was. Lydia was smiling when she came up behind and pointed it out down the hall, and Stiles counted it as a small victory.

She left her dirty clothes in a heap by the sink and stepped under the steaming hot spray. She almost groaned again, but in pleasure, from the perfectness of the water pressure. Between the shower and the bed, Stiles was tempted to find a way to permanently stay in the Hale house. She quickly scrubbed her hair and body with whatever products were in the shower and was a little sad when she forced herself to turn off the water. She could have stayed in there for hours.

Her clothes were gone when she stepped out, and in their place a pair of plain black sweatpants with a drawstring waist and fade t-shirt that had been stretched out in the shoulders sat folded on the vanity counter. She hadn’t heard anyone open the bathroom door, but she was in a house full of werewolves.

Feeling a little more awake and a little more prepared to face the whole pack during the looming meeting, Stiles stepped back into the hall with the intent of finding where everyone was gathering. She heard muffled noises coming from a few door down in the same moment she realized the sound was coming from the nursery. She padded quietly down the hallway. And she was greatly amused by what she saw inside the dimly lit room.

Derek sat in the rocking chair tucked into the corner near a window with a squirming bundle of blankets in his arms, obviously trying to settle her child with no success.

“She doesn’t like to be rocked like that,” Stiles said breaking the silence. “You’re better off with a pace and sway method, unfortunately.”

Derek’s gaze snapped up to meet her’s when she spoke. “Stiles,” he said caught off guard. He stood, holding Rory out to her. “Here. I’ll let you her.”

Stiles moved closer to Derek’s place by the rocking chair but held up a hand. “Oh no, you Hales seem to love my baby, so you can put her down for a nap.”

She watched as Derek tucked Rory’s blankets more securely around her and hesitantly began a carefully coordinated pace, moving exactly as Stiles had suggested. Quiet minutes ticked by, and he looped around the room in slow circles as her baby drifted deeper and deeper into sleep. Stiles didn’t want to interrupt the peace that had settled over the space, but she didn’t know when she would have another chance to have Derek in a position where he couldn’t easily hide from her.

“I need to thank you for last night,” she said, her voice low so it wouldn’t disturb Rory.

Derek paused his pacing and glanced down at her baby in his arms before he replied, “I…you’re welcome.” His eyebrows formed a complicated arrangement that made him look uncomfortable with the conversation.

Stiles just hoped he wasn’t uncomfortable because of her.

“Was Rory any trouble?” she asked instead.

The subtle tension Derek held in his body was released, and he started up his loops around the room again, even though it was unnecessary since Rory was already asleep.

“No,” Derek said. “Even if she had cried for twelve hours straight, she’d never be _trouble_. Maybe a little harsh on the ears, though.”

Stiles felt herself smile without permission. And when Derek turned to face her, she caught him almost smiling back.

He continued, “Besides, Pack takes-”

“Takes care of pack,” Stiles softly interrupted Derek. “Yeah, I know. Laura said the same thing earlier.”

Derek shrugged as much he could with Rory in his arms. His slight smile was still visible.

Before he could say anything else, Isaac appeared in the doorway and said, “the Sheriff and Scott are here. We’re meeting in the living room.”

They both acknowledged Isaac’s message, and Stiles knew the moment between her and Derek had passed. He didn’t protest as she slipped Rory out of his arms and into the empty crib. At least, Stiles thought to herself, she didn’t need a baby monitor with a house full of werewolves. She made sure her daughter would stay asleep and waited for Derek to step into the hall so that she could ease the door closed behind him. 


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh it's been so long but life has been so crazy. Thank you for being patient! 
> 
> This chapter isn't as long as some of the others, but I liked where this one ended. I hope you guys enjoy.

Derek unconsciously tuned his hearing in to the sounds of the house as he trailed behind Stiles on the way to the living room. He could hear Rory’s soft breathing getting deeper and deeper and Boyd’s steady voice negotiating with Charlotte and Olivia to take naps like Henry and Rory were doing. Stiles’s father and Scott was engaging in small talk with Lydia and Jack, while Derek’s sisters were vying for the same spot on one of the couches.

Stiles hesitated on the last step on the staircase, and Derek paused too. With their new height difference, Derek could see the crown of her head and noticed for the first time that she was wearing one of the spare shirts he normal kept at the pack house. He wondered who would have given it to her to change into.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

Stiles nodded to herself and then looked up at Derek behind her. “My dad’s going to be so pissed.”

Derek watched as she let out a quick exhale and unclenched her fists, before stepping onto the wooden flooring of the house’s main level and striding in the direction of the living room.

Everyone in the room looked at them when they entered and the conversations instantly halted. Derek remained in the doorway while Stiles scurried to sit between Lydia and Scott. She purposely didn’t meet her father’s gaze

“Stiles,” the Sheriff began, and Derek was glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of his tone.

“Hey, Dad…” replied Stiles, finally making eye contact, “we should talk about some stuff later.”

The Sheriff uncrossed his arms and settled further into his seat. “Yes, we should.”

Derek heard one of his sisters clear their throat at the same time a heavy hand clasped him on the shoulder.

Boyd appeared in his periphery. He tilted his head in the direction of a room deeper in the house and said, “The girls are settled for the moment. We’re good to start now.” Then he took a seat next to his wife, wrapping a long arm along the back of Erica’s shoulders to draw her in close.

The only spot left in the room was an end seat on the couch with Cora, Laura, and Jack, and with four grown adults there wasn’t a lot of leftover room. Usually, there weren’t so many people in the den during a pack meeting and definitely not as many people who weren’t officially members of the Hale Pack.

When Derek was young, pack meetings were excuses for his parents to do boring things like give out summer chore duties. But it wasn’t until Derek was in high school that he learned pack meetings could also be called for serious business. Like when the pack was in danger.

Today’s meeting certainly had everyone on edge.

The room settled as his mother began to talk. “Good afternoon, everyone. Sheriff Stilinski,” she said, addressing him directly, “thank you for joining us today under less than pleasant circumstances and thank you for trusting us to care for Stiles and Rory in your absence. As you’ve been told, last night after welcoming Stiles, Rory, and Henry Boyd into the pack, Stiles preformed a bonding ritual to accept her role as Emissary to the Hale Pack and Guardian of the Nemeton. But during the ritual there was a…disturbance… in the pack bonds causing Stiles to faint. It’s our job now to figure out what happened and what to do moving forward. Stiles, would you like start?”

The attention in the room immediately shifted to Stiles who looked deep in thought from her furrowed eyebrows as she stared at the carpeted floor and chewed on a hangnail. When she noticed everyone looking at her, she startled, quickly composing herself as if she hadn’t. Stiles looked to the Sheriff, who was expectantly waiting for her explanation, and she opened her mouth as if she was about to start speaking before hesitating. Derek couldn’t help but notice the sourness suddenly tainting her crisp scent.

“Like Tali- Alpha Hale said, after joining the pack and the full moon run, I began a bonding ceremony to further tie me to the pack, the territory, and the Nemeton. Everything was fine. I could see all the different pack bonds and the net that stretches out across the territory, that part wasn’t a problem.” Stiles paused then and rubbed at her temples like she was in discomfort. “I was digging deeper past the bonds to look at the Nemeton when I noticed part of a bond tied to its roots that shouldn’t have been there. I could tell that it wasn’t new, but it wasn’t necessarily weak or a dying bond. I could also feel that it wasn’t attached to anyone in the pack, and when I reached out for it to look closer, there was a shock wave of energy, bad energy. That’s what you guys must have felt through the pack bonds before I passed out from the unexpected overload.”

The wolves in the room shifted in their seats in uneasiness as distress slowly oozed through the pack bonds.

Cora didn’t say anything when Derek leaned closer into her space, but he wasn’t the only one in the room reaching out for some kind of physical comfort from pack. Even Lydia grabbed for Stiles’s hand in support. The Sheriff’s concern for his daughter only became more evident.

“Any thoughts on what that bond could have been from?” asked Peter.

Stiles rolled her eyes in his direction. “I haven’t exactly been conscious long enough to think about it.”

“For a Pack Emissary as strong and smart as you, I don’t believe that,” he replied.

“Ugh, fine!” Stiles stood and began to pace the length of the den. No one tried to stop her. “I have thought about it, but I’m going to preface by saying I need to do more research before I can say anything with absolute certainty. The bond that doesn’t belong with ours has to be attached to someone on the other side. I only saw one end of it. My best guess is that someone once tried to create a bond to Beacon Hills using the Nemeton, but they weren’t successful.”

His mother remained silent, and in her place, Laura asked the next question.

“Who would want to do that?”

Stiles shrugged. “Who wouldn’t? The Hale Pack is an old pack and highly influential one too. And that’s not even touching on what someone could do with unrestricted access to the Nemeton. All I can say about this person’s identity is that they have some capacity for magic and that they don’t have good intentions towards the pack.”

“Stiles is right,” Lydia said.

The pack remained stiffly quiet as distress flared through the pack bonds more intensely.

“Could you please elaborate on that, Ms. Martin?” His mother’s gaze and scent didn’t give anything away.

“Originally, I hadn’t planned to be at the ceremony last night, but two nights ago I dreamt about Beacon Hills and woke up knowing something bad was coming.”

Derek hadn’t had much interactions with Lydia in the years since the rouge Alpha came to town and attacked several high school students. While Isaac, Erica, Boyd, and Scott’s bodies accepted the bite and were transformed into werewolves, Lydia became a Banshee, an Omen of Death. He respected her gifts, but that doesn’t mean he also isn’t wary of someone whose abilities revolve around death.

Lydia continued, “I booked the earliest flight I could and called Alpha Hale to tell her I had a premonition about Beacon Hills. We were supposed to have a meeting today, but that was before.”

“Can you tell us what you saw Lydia?” This time it was Stiles’s turn to offer Lydia comfort by squeezing her hand. “Anything will be helpful.”

“There was figure shrouded in darkness slowly moving towards the Nemeton. When they were finally close enough to touch it, the Nemeton began to rot. I tried to scream to warn everyone, but the sense of corruption was so overwhelming, I woke up. I don’t feel it as intensely now, but after the ritual last night, I can tell you someone or _something _wants Beacon Hills.”

“Thank you, Ms. Martin,” his mother said at the same time she pushed reassurance along the pack bonds to quell the mounting negativity. “You’re an invaluable ally to the Hale Pack.”

Derek knew he was probably at fault for a good portion of the distress in the bonds. Too many bad things had happened to him and his pack because he hadn’t seen the warning signs. Lydia confirming Stiles’s initial thoughts only resolved Derek’s promise to himself and to his pack to never let them be in danger again.

Stiles was up pacing again but the sourness from her scent was gone. “As for next steps, I have some warding I was planning to do anyway but will help until I know more specifically what we’re up against, and that means I’ll be doing a lot of research these next few days. Lydia, you’re welcome to join me.”

“You could go to Deaton for help too,” Scott said.

Stiles snorted instead of rolling her eyes. “Deaton’s probably the reason while there’s a semi-malicious bond stuck to the Nemeton anyway. I’m not saying he’s the one who did it,” she quickly added, “but there’s a reason I fought so hard to become the Guardian of the Beacon Hills Nemeton. I’ve never trusted him, he’s never been every truthful, and now he’s let something major happen while he was supposed to be watching things. He should be coming to me for help.” The finality of Stiles’s voice put an end to that part of the conversation.

“In the meantime, Alpha Hale, anyone who goes out on patrol of the territory needs to be extra careful and needs to call me immediately if they so much as smell something suspicious.”

“Does everyone understand?” his mother asked. Derek and the other Betas nodded. “Do you have anything else for us to do, Stiles?”

“Other than get me the recipe for the curry I ate earlier, no, I don’t have anything else.”

Stiles’s joke broke through part of the tension and earned her a few laughing huffs from people in the room.

His mother stood from her chair which normally meant the pack meeting was officially over, but no one still seated moved. “I would like to talk with Peter, Stiles, and Sheriff Stilinski a moment longer, but the rest of you are free to leave.”

Derek didn’t loiter, and in the next blink on an eye he stood on the back porch of his family’s home looking out into the expanse of the preserve. The warmth of the sun nice against the bare skin of his arms, and it was strange to think less than twenty-four hours before, he was eating dinner with his pack and making sure he didn’t embarrass himself again in front of the new Pack Emissary. This was supposed to be a time of celebration and peace for his pack, but instead they were now preparing for an unknown threat.

The Stilinskis, Scott, and Lydia were gone by the time Derek went back inside.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a bad day so I thought I spend the rest of it finishing this chapter. 
> 
> Also, I'd love to know from you guys, if you'd like a list or something for all the characters/relationships? I know there's a lot of people to juggle, but I'm trying to keep the tags to a minimum. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter!

It was late afternoon by the time they arrived at the Stilinski residence.

After the pack meeting was ended, most of the pack dispersed as quickly as possible, and Stiles didn’t blame them. All throughout the meeting she felt emotions bouncing around the pack bonds, and she knew as an Emissary, she was only feeling a fraction of what the wolves felt. And if she hadn’t been asked to stay behind, she would have immediately left to check on her daughter, even if it was just to have a moment to herself. Her mind drifted from Rory to the Nemeton and the threat on the Hale Pack as Talia spoke to her dad and Peter about bringing in additional support from the Sheriff’s Office. Her dad agreed to update Jordan Parrish, the only supernatural member of the force, about the situation and said he could keep an eye on things on his end too. 

By the time that was over, and she rounded up Scott and Lydia and Rory for goodbyes, Stiles knew she was getting antsy. There was just so many things to do. Scott volunteered to take Lydia to a hotel, when Stiles followed her dad through the unlocked front door, she was relieved to be back home. He dropped her bags in the entryway to be dealt with later while she worked on unbuckling Rory from the car seat carrier. 

“So, I guess starting work today is off the table?” Stiles glanced up and watched as her dad shifted into Sheriff-mode.

“Stiles,” he said, and she did not like his tone. “What were you thinking last night? You could have gotten hurt. _Rory_ could have gotten hurt.”

“I was doing my job, Dad. Did you not hear me during the meeting? I did everything like I was supposed to, and it was going fine, great even. There was no way of knowing there was going to be a feedback reaction!” Stiles didn’t want to get upset, but she didn’t appreciate the implications that she went looking for trouble, especially the implications that she would also purposefully put her daughter in harm’s way too. “I made a promise to the Hales to help them, and I can’t back out of it now, not when I’ve just started and there’s already a threat. Something bad wants to hurt Beacon Hills and the Hales, Lydia confirmed it, and it’s now my responsibility to stop that from happening.”

Stiles moved across the living room and paced the length of the floor.

“I’m not saying you can’t do your job. I’m saying you need to think more before diving straight into things. I want you to be safe, just like you’re always worrying about me being safe.” He sighed. “Why don’t you give me Rory and turn in early?”

Stiles paused mid stride, whipping her head in the Sheriff’s direction.

“That’s the last thing I want to do right now,” she snapped. But after the words left her mouth she deflated. “Everyone but me has held my baby today, so I’m not putting her down until I decide to.”

Her dad fell heavily into a corner of the couch and patted the vacant cushion next to him. “Come sit down.”

She couldn’t deny she was exhausted, so she sat and tucked herself into her dad’s side like she was still small enough fit.

“I don’t want to argue, and I’m not saying you can’t do your job to help the Hales,” he said. “But I need you to think a little more before doing, at least until the threat is handled. You don’t have to go jumping into the middle of the action like you did in high school. You have the Hale Pack to support you, and you still have me too. I may be human, but I do have a something called the law on my side.”

“Thank you, dad. I promise I won’t try to do everything on my own.” Stiles meant it, but it didn’t mean it would be an easy thing to do. Years of keeping secrets and trying to prove herself made delegation not one of her top skills.

Her dad didn’t say anything else, but is arm came down and pulled her in closer, with Rory cradled contently between them. He reached for the TV remote for some meaningless background noise. Stiles pushed her worries about the unknown threat to Beacon Hills to the back of her mind. All of it could wait until she didn’t feel like shit. And she allowed herself to relax into the calming comfort of holding tightly to her dad and her daughter.

Stiles jerked awake at the sound of Rory making grumbling noises, and it took her a second to realized she must have dozed off at some point. Instead of sitting upright, she was now sprawled out on her back the length of the couch with Rory also stretched out on top of her chest and barricaded in place with strategically placed pillows. A quick glance outside the living room windows told Stiles it was already dark outside, though it didn’t mean much since the days were noticeably shorted as winter grew closer. And she couldn’t have been asleep for long if Rory was just now fussing in hunger.

Her dad was no longer in the living room, but if the sudden clanging from the direction of the kitchen was any indication, he was hopefully coming up with something for them to eat.

Stiles carefully sat up, holding Rory to her chest, before grabbing one of the pillows to support her arms and leaning back to lift one of the edges of the baggy Hale shirt she was still wearing. She made a mental note to remember to return the clothing at the first possible chance.

No matter how many times Stiles fed her daughter like this, she could never get over the sensation of it. She knew part of it was all the good feeling hormones released, but other parts couldn’t be explained by science. Her spark also settled, bringing Stiles a deeper sense of calm, and if often made her wonder if Rory would inherit any of her gifts. Like most supernatural adjacent beings, passing abilities along genetically wasn’t always a given. But also, like she learned very early on in her Emissary training, having her magic stem from her spark was unique in and of itself, and the spark hadn’t appeared out of nowhere. Though even with Stiles’s fantastic research skills finding out information about her family, on either side, had been near impossible, and her questions were still left unanswered.

Stiles ran the pad of her pointer finger down the bridge of Rory’s tiny nose and smiled as her daughter went slightly crossed-eyed as she tried to track it. It was crazy to think her daughter already being a month old. If she’d come when expected, she’d be barely a week old and even tinier than she was now. And if Rory did have her own spark, Stiles already made the promise to herself and to her daughter that she would make sure Rory never had to deal with any of it by herself Stiles knew first hand what it was like to be thrust into the world of magic and the supernatural and danger and having to figure it out practically alone, and she would never wish that experience on anyone. But as long as Stiles was in Beacon Hills and still breathing, Rory would never have to worry about being in danger, though her job would be easier to do if she had more information about the current threat to the pack.

Rory unlatched and kicked her tiny socked feet in the cutest show of discomfort, so Stiles brought her upright against her shoulder for a few firm pats on the back. She hoped she wasn’t going to regret having a spare towel on hand during burping, but after a particularly good burp, Stiles changed it to hoping that whatever was now on the back of the shirt washed out easily.

She switched Rory to the other breast in case she was still hungry and sat in the comforting silence, knowing that at least for the moment, this was the most important thing to focus on.

The banging in the kitchen stopped as Rory was being burped for a second time.

“Good, you’re awake. Dinner’s ready.”

Stiles twisted her upper body around enough to see her dad standing in the opening that divided the living room from the kitchen and dinner room. “Thank god, I’m starving. Rory already had a head start on us.”

“You always say you’re starving,” he replied, voice light and teasing.

“Because it’s always true.” Stiles gave her daughter a final pat. “What’re we having?” she asked as joined her dad around the table.

“Stilinski Scrambled Eggs.”

“Fuck yeah!”

The Sheriff gave her a look about her use of language but didn’t comment on it. “Do you want me to take her so that you can eat?”

“No, you cooked. But if you could grab the sling from my bag, I’ll just wrap her up so that I can have both hands free.”

“Sure, kiddo,” he said and then disappeared to find where diaper bag had been left.

Stiles took and empty seat and waited for her dad to return, softly tapping out a random rhythm with her fingertips on her baby’s clothed back. She could tell Rory was alert but still content to be cuddled after her evening feeding, giving Stiles a decent amount of time to enjoy a good meal before her daughter needed her again.

Stilinski Scrambled Eggs weren’t necessarily a tradition, but they were definitely a form a comfort food for her and her dad, stemming back before her mom got sick. One night, neither parent could figure out what to make out of the random assortment of leftovers in the fridge, until her mom suggested throwing some of it in a pan together with a few eggs and some extra cheese, and Stilinski Scrambled Eggs were born. Some combinations turned out better than others, but it was easy and a reminder of happier times. 

The Sheriff returned with the cloth wrap for Stiles and a stack of papers divided into groups by manila folders. He placed the at the far end of the table

“Hey, what’s that?”

“That,” her dad said, dividing the mixture of steak, veggies, and eggs between their two plates, “are some case files Parrish dropped off this morning. I know you and your tendencies to get into things despite being told to wait, so I figured it was no use holding onto them for another day.”

Stiles stretched out an arm and slowly leaned across the table to grab the top-most file, making sure Rory didn’t squished against the table or into Stiles’s plate of food.

“But you’ll have to wait until later. You know the rules, no police business during dinner.”

“Now eat your food before it gets cold.” He smiled. “I put a lot of hard work into those eggs.”

“You’re off tomorrow morning, right?” asked Stiles, dragging her eyes from the stack.

“Uh, yeah. Unless something dire happens and they call me in.”

“So, you’re still good with watching Rory?”

“Of course. It’s our longstanding Rory-Grandpa Thursday morning date!”

Stiles rolled her eyes. It wasn’t like her dad didn’t come up with the Rory-Grandpa Thursday morning dates a few weeks ago as an excuse to give Stiles a few hours out of the house alone. “I’m just double checking. I have an early class with Kira, but afterwards I think I’m gonna check out the warding around the Hale House. I should be back before lunch.”

“If anything happens, do you promise to call?”

“Yes, dad, I promise. You’ll be the first to know _if _anything happens,” she said in response and then shoved a forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth.

Stiles wasn’t able to actually look at the files until much later in the night, but not for a lack of trying.

First, she volunteered to clean the kitchen while her dad supervised evening tummy time, and once Rory was worn out, Stiles stepped in to get her daughter ready for the rest of the night. She was thankful Rory was mostly indifferent to baths at the moment. Stiles didn’t know what she would do with a squirming wet baby and only one pair of hands. After a bath it was story time, since that’s what all the books Stiles read said to do in order to establish a good routine, and another feeding, before Rory was asleep and swaddled in her crib.

She was about the read through the files she when she remembered her shirt was covered in baby throw up from earlier. So she decided to do a load of laundry, which turned into doing another load of just Rory’s dirty things. And then she checked her phone for the first time all day and had to respond to the dozen or so messages asking for updates, to prevent her friends from showing up at her door as they threatened to do if she didn’t answer. But by the time she was ready to look at the police files, Rory woke up for another feeding.

Once Rory was settled again, Stiles found her dad watching highlights from a baseball playoff game on the living room TV. The files were still sitting where they had been placed at the end of the table in the dining room. She grabbed a glass of water since any caffeine was out of the question, set the baby monitor beside her, and flipped open the first file.

“I’m going to turn in for the night,” she heard her dad say. A quick glance up told her he was standing at the base of the stairs. The rest of the downstairs was now dark. “Don’t stay up too late.” 

“I’ll try not to.”

He nodded, both of them knowing there was only a small chance that was going to be true.

Stiles massaged the tight muscles in her neck when she finished reading through the last of the folders. There were thirty-four case files in total stretching back to the last six months. Most of them were basic reports ranging from petty theft to two different cases about an animal found dead in the city with a suspicious cause of death, and she wasn’t completely sure why she was given them as a special consultant to the Sheriff’s office. Stiles crossed her fingers that there were more waiting for her so that her new job would be at least somewhat interesting.

She blinked and her eyes felt incredibly heavy. Having a baby certainly ruined her ability to work all through the night, even if she was already up every few hours when Rory woke up needing to eat. Just as she began stacking the files into a neat column of crime, the baby monitor crackled to life, and Stiles took it as her cue to wrap everything up and shuffle upstairs.

Any more thinking could wait for tomorrow.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thank you all for your continued support, it means so much to me. I hope this update can provided a little bit of comfort in such a high anxiety time. And remember, you can't spend energy helping others if you don't also spend energy helping yourself too.

Derek didn’t really know why he was loitering around his childhood home, except for the fact that he didn’t have a better excuse to be somewhere else. Most of the pack spent the extra night together at the house, but once morning came, they returned to regular lives. Charlotte and Olivia were carted off to their respective kindergarten and preschool, and the adults who had to work packed themselves up too. Erica hung around the pack house with Henry for little longer after breakfast, filling the rooms she was in with her usual playful banter, before also leaving to go back to her own home.

“Are you staying the day?” asked his mother when materialized by his side.

Derek nodded.

“Keep an eye out for Stiles then,” she said giving him a kiss on the cheek. “She’s supposed to stop by later this morning to look at the warding around the house.”

“I can do that,” replied Derek.

“And make sure your father doesn’t spend all day out in the workshop, you know how he can be when he starts working on a new project.”

Derek nodded and returned a kiss to this mother’s cheek. Carpentry had been his father’s since before Derek could remember. As a child, whenever he needed some time away from his sisters’ overwhelming energy, he would sneak into the workshop to sit in silence, out of the way, as his dad measured, sanded, and carved for hours. When Olivia was born, his father decided to sell his construction company and enjoy an early retirement.

Instead of waiting for Stiles on the front porch, Derek hesitated in the kitchen fiddling with the ceramic kettle of lukewarm water left on the stove from breakfast. He could track Stiles's progress towards the house well enough with just his hearing. There was the sound of rubber tires crunching through the gravel drive, and the squeak of old breaks as she came to a full stop in front of the house. The door on the Jeep groaned open and was slammed shut, followed but the softer sound of footsteps closing the distance to the porch and front door. Derek waited to move until there was a rapid-fire series of knocks.

“Oh. Hi, Derek,” she said in surprise when the door swung open. “Is your mom here? I wanted to look at the wards around the house.”

“She’s in town for a meeting, but she said you’d be here.” Derek stepped to the side so Stiles could enter.

When she passed him and sauntered into the house, he noticed she didn’t have Rory with her.

“No baby?” he asked following after her into the kitchen.

“Nah, not today. It’s good for both of us to get some outside socialization sometimes.” She gestured to the lightweight athletic clothing she was wearing, and Derek assumed she was referring to one of Kira’s classes he overheard her and the pack talking about the other night. “Rory’s also with my dad this morning so I can get some work done without distractions.”

Derek nodded in acknowledgement, but otherwise didn’t know what to do while in a room alone with Stiles. "Can I get you anything? Do I need to show you where the wards are?" he asked, hoping it didn’t come across as awkward as he felt.

Stiles fiddled with the straps of her backpack, and her face didn’t show what she was thinking. Her chemosignals didn't reveal what she was feeling either, still clouded with endorphins from her recent workout.

"No, I can find them. I just need to use the bathroom before I head out. Oh!” she exclaimed and slipped her backpack off one shoulder. “I remembered to bring these back.”

She pulled out a small folded stack of clothes and handed it to Derek across the counter. It was the shirt and sweatpants she went home in the day before.

Derek clutched them tightly in his hands. “Thanks. There’s a bathroom down the hall to the left. I’ll just go put these away.”

He didn’t wait for a response from Stiles before he fled the kitchen. Stiles’s earthy scent followed him upstairs to his childhood bedroom that he still used when he spent the night at the Pack house, but it wasn’t until he heard the front door open and close and her heartbeat grow faint that Derek figured out he could still smell Stiles because her scent clung to the clothes she had just returned. On top of the artificial fragrance of lavender detergent was the richness of a forest that was so unique to Stiles. Derek decided it was better to wash the clothes again in their own load with the scent-neutralizing blend the Pack used, so that when he put the clothes back in their drawers, nothing else would accidentally smell like her. 

After loading the washing machine, Derek checked on Jackson who had set up a temporary office space in an unoccupied bedroom to do work while he was away for an_ extended family emergency_. The Pack knew Jackson enjoyed the life he had made for himself in London, but it also wouldn’t be unexpected by anyone if he announced new plans to return to Beacon Hills to settle permanently on Hale land.

Jackson was fine, busy typing away on his computer keyboard, and Derek knew there wasn’t anything else that needed to be done around the house. He drifted through rooms until he sat in his favorite spot in the living room with a book that he’d been meaning to read. But when he read the same page three times because his brain got stuck thinking about Stiles walking around the property looking for the wards that protected the house.

Derek gave up on the book the fourth time he read the page and decided seeing what his dad was working on in this workshop would be a better distraction for his restlessness.

He stepped out onto the back porch as Stiles suddenly appeared at the bottom of the steps.

“I need a Hale,” she announced.

Out of all the things that popped into Derek’s head in response, the only thing that managed to come out was, “why?”

“Because I need to check on the Nemeton again, and the process would be easier to do with a Hale around since your family is already so connected to it. If you don’t want to do it, is there anyone else around?”

“Just my dad and Jackson.” Derek saw Stiles’s nose scrunch up hearing Jackson’s name. “But I can come with you.”

“Great,” she replied and straighten from her slouch against a railing post. “Let’s go!”

The walk through the woods was mostly silent between the two of them, the only outward noise coming from their footsteps over rock, dirt, and grasses. The closer they got to the Nemeton, the easier Derek could feel his wolf. It wasn’t the same the full moon, when his wolf was stronger and begged to be released, instead it almost felt the opposite, like his wolf was more content to meld together with his humanity. Pushing out with his enhanced hearing, Derek forced himself not to linger on the steady rhythm of Stiles’s heartbeat, and instead he concentrated on the noises from small animals in the underbrush sensing a predator drawing close and tried to distinguish between different species of birds solely on the sounds of their calls like he used to do with his sisters when they were learning control.

In a quiet lull her cellphone burst to life, scaring a squirrel clinging to a tree next to them. Stiles paused to check who was calling.

“It’s my dad,” she said, already accepting the call and raising the device to her ear. “Hey, daddio, what’s up?”

Derek heard the Sheriff’s tiny voice telling Stiles Rory had gone down for her mid-morning nap and asking about a progress update.

“I double checked the wards around the Pack house and found nothing strange, but I went ahead and gave them a personal boost away. When I talk to Alpha Hale later, I’m gonna see about the wards for the Pack’s individual houses. I think I’ll go head and redo the wards around our house too while I’m thinking about it. Who knows the last time that was done.”

Derek walked on ahead so that Stiles could finish her conversation with her dad with some semblance of privacy.

“Everything good?” Derek asked when Stiles caught up with him.

“Yeah! Rory's been an angel like I know she is, but I probably shouldn’t take forever at the Nemeton. Dad has to go in to the station this afternoon, and I don’t to want cut it too close getting back home.”

Derek nodded and quickened their pace down the path. 

When they reached the clearing, Stiles didn’t waste time climbing on top of the Nemeton’s stump. She left her zipped-up backpack wedged against a thick root that breached the surface of the ground and sat cross-legged, as if she was about meditate.

“Don’t you need candles or something?” asked Derek, remembering she used them during the ceremony on the full moon.

“No,” she replied, “not for this. I know what I’m looking for this time.” She closed her eyes and went completely still, so at odds to her normal state.

Derek stood silently out of her way and watched as her deep breaths evened out. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t, too transfixed on how the bright sun brought out the golden highlights of her brunette hair which was slowly escaping from a haphazardly constructed ponytail.

After a soft exhale through her nose, Stiles’s eyes fluttered open as she patted the empty space on the stump in front of her. “Come on up, big guy, and like last time concentrate on the pack bonds.”

He followed her instructions without hesitation.

Like the night of the full moon, it wasn’t difficult for Derek to latch onto the feeling of his wolf resting contently in the center of his chest and being a part of the Pack. And a few breaths later they were encased in a bubble of perfect silence.

The stump of the Nemeton was large, but Stiles’s legs were long, and facing each other their knees were only a few inches apart. This close to Stiles, her appealing scent was impossible to ignore. How it blended seamlessly with the cacophony of scents this deep into the Preserve, yet at the same time grew stronger and clearer in waves as motionless seconds ticked by.

“So, I can say that the rouge bond hasn’t gotten stronger since the other night.”

The woods around them were noisy again when Stiles spoke, and Derek didn’t know when his eyes had fallen closed until he opened them.

“That’s good.”

“Yep,” she replied with a self-satisfied smile while rolling unseen tension out of her shoulders. “Until I can figure out more about who created the bond, I’ll probably need to check it regularly. Just to be safe.”

“As Pack Emissary, you don’t need permission to access the Nemeton.”

“I know that, but I thought I’d be polite with the heads up, in case you didn’t want to get stuck having to help me again.”

Derek turned away from her and got off the stump. He wanted to tell her that he didn’t mind being with her, but at the same time he wasn’t sure how much more he could handle being alone with her before he did something he regretted. Stiles had a duty to the Pack and a baby to focus on, let alone the unknown factor of the status of Rory’s father. As far as Derek knew, Stiles had yet to mention being in a relationship, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t out of the question. He turned to face Stiles again without knowing what to say.

He expected her to also stand and grab her backpack so that they could head back to the Pack house and she could go home. Instead Stiles spun in her seating position and leaned backwards until she was sprawled out on the Nemeton studying the cloudless sky above their heads.

“Do you need a minute?”

Stiles tilted her head to glance at him before focusing again on the unobscured view of the sky.

“This is the longest I’ve been away from daughter, while awake, and I don’t know how I feel about it,” she said. “Did you know, for the longest time, I thought I’d never come back to Beacon Hills? I thought I go off to school, travel the world studying magic, try to find myself or something. And I got to do that, but-” she paused, “but when I found out I was pregnant I didn’t want my child to feel so unmoored like I do. I knew my dad missed me, I definitely missed him too, and I knew Scott had matured since high school and wasn’t as _stubborn_ as before.”

There had been only one time in Derek’s life when he considered leaving Beacon Hills, but after Kate Argent came into his life and tore it to shreds, he could never think about being separated from his pack, even if it was only temporary. He was also thankful that his family didn’t force him away after they learned what happened, instead they showed him more love than he once thought he deserved.

“When I heard your mom was looking for a new Pack Emissary, I thought it was another sign to return, to come _home,_” continued Stiles, her face purposefully trained up at the sky. “Now I’m worried that I’ve messed up and have put the Pack in danger.”

Derek caught Stiles’s previously steady heartbeat stumble in her chest. Not in the sense that she was lying about what she was saying, but in a way that amplified her self-doubt.

“If you hadn’t found the hidden partial bond when you did, who knows what would have happened or how long we would have been oblivious to the danger.” He glanced at Stiles, and she was looking back at him. “At least now we have time to prepare a defense. You’ve saved the Pack, my family, once before, and though there’s more at stake now, I know you will do everything in your power to protect us.”

“Considering I was technically asleep the first time around, this should be nothing then. I might even get the chance to show off all the cool things I’ve learned since then.”

“Let’s go,” Derek replied, glad to have Stiles’s sense of humor lessening the pain of talking about the past. “You told your dad you’d be home soon.”

When Stiles sat up, she was smiling, and when she saw Derek waiting for her, she softly laughed to herself without worry. And Derek was grateful she couldn’t hear when his heart skipped a beat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shakes head at Derek but in a loving way*


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since an update, but life's been kinda crazy these las few months.... Thank you so much to everyone who's left such lovely comments since then. I started this fic a year ago as a self indulgent birthday present to myself, and I'm so happy other people love it as much as I do!! So thank you for your continued support. I hope you enjoy this chapter!!
> 
> Warning: This chapter has discussion/descriptions of animal mutilation

Stiles had just put her feet up on the couch, a milk-drunk Rory dozing in her arms, when her father called out her name.

The last two weeks had been comparatively quiet, for which Stiles was thankful. Once she checked the wards around the Hale house and the residences of other pack members, she then expanded outward and reinforced the larger wards surrounding the Pack’s territory. Whoever had established the past warding, Deaton most likely, had done a sufficient job, but the wards were also years old and their strength had already begun to fade. There was a chance they could have lasted for a handful of more years if they remained inactive. With the unknown threat looming over their heads and Stiles’s unmatched abilities as an Emissary, there was no need to take that risks.

Now the pack and Beacon Hills had re-warded protection twice as strong as it had been before, and it was easier to keep a metaphorical eye on things as Stiles settled into the routine for the parts of her life that didn’t involve magic or werewolves.

Stiles was caught thinking Rory was growing too fast while still being so incredibly tiny. What little time Stiles had in between her Emissary duties, researching for cases at the sheriff’s office, feedings, diaper changes, errands, and forced breaks from her dad, Stiles spent quietly watching her daughter hoping to pause time just for a second.

“Stiles!” her dad called again. “Your phone is ringing.”

She groaned to herself because she was terribly comfortable and had no intentions of moving from her spot on the couch. The sun was barely up in the sky, and the only reason Stiles was awake too was because she had gotten use to Rory’s very early morning feedings and eating breakfast with her dad when he took the earliest shift.

Stiles carefully peeled herself off the couch as to not jostle Rory and made her way to the kitchen where she apparently left her phone on the counter. Her dad, dressed for work in a crisp uniform, stood leaning up against the fridge and motioned to hand over the baby.

Laura Hale was calling.

“This better be a good reason for making me get off the couch,” Stiles said without preamble.

“Ah, Stiles, good morning. Sorry for interrupting whatever you were doing, but someone’s left a dead deer in the middle of our front yard.”

It took Stiles’ sleepy brain a second to process Laura’s words. “What do you mean a dead deer?”

Laura sighed on the other end of the line, and it sounded like it was the type of sigh parents directed to misbehaving children. Stiles snickered to herself.

“I _mean_ there’s a deer with a broken neck and some kind of symbol carved all over its body.”

“Oh, that doesn’t good.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Stiles saw her dad shift Rory to one arm and pull his own phone out of his pocket with a frown.

“Is there blood around?”

“Yeah, there’s a lot of it,” Laura replied.

Now it was Stiles’s turn to sigh. “That’s definitely not good.”

Her father’s frown deepened at whatever he was hearing at the other end his own phone conversation.

“Just hold on,” Stiles continued. “I’ll over as soon as I can. If you’re worried about the neighbors seeing, throw a tarp over it or something, but make sure you don’t touch the deer or the blood.”

Laura acknowledged Stiles’s instructions and hung up without further ceremony.

And Stiles was already making a mental list of everything she needed to get together quickly so that she could get herself and the baby out of the door in a reasonable amount of time. First there was the diaper bag and her emissary kit, both of which Stiles was fairly certain had been restocked the day before. Then maybe some cleaning supplies.

She reached to take her daughter back at the same time her father held a hand up for her to stop.

“Did I hear you talking about a dead deer?”

“Laura Hale found one in her yard. I told her I’d be right there to check it out.”

Rory chose that moment to squirm, so Stiles took the opportunity to steal her back. Her dad scrubbed his free hands over his face. It looked like neither of them were getting an easy, peaceful morning.

“I just off the phone with Talia,” he said. “She called to say she got a message from two of her Betas saying someone left a bloody deer outside their front door.”

“Which Betas?”

“The Boyds.”

“Hmm, what do you think Rory?” Stiles half-asked her daughter, who was now contently chilling, while she worked out different possibilities for the meaning of the deer in her head. “You know, twice is a coincidence-” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I’m the one who taught you that,” her dad said.

“I wasn’t talking to _you_. Obviously.”

The Sheriff checked the clock on the stove and picked up the travel mug of coffee that had been sitting next to him on the counter. “I need to go to the station now. But just be careful, okay?”

Stiles refrained from rolling her eyes. “Yes. Like always, I’ll be as careful as I can.” With Rory held to her chest, she scurried out of the kitchen and shouted over her shoulder, “Have a good day at work!”

By the time Stiles rolled up in the jeep in front of Laura and Jack’s house, she felt like she spent more time on the phone than she in the whole year previous, trying coordinate a plan of action when it was made clear that the entire Hale Pack had been targeted with the dead deer surprise. Everyone was strict orders not to touch anything, and Stiles roped in Lydia and Parrish, on his day off, to help her document and contain the mess until she could determine a safe disposal method.

Laura was waiting outside for Stiles, standing next to a not-so inconspicuous blue tarp laid out in the front year.

Luckily for them, the house was in a less populated area outside of Beacon Hills proper, so there wasn’t a worry of neighbors sticking their heads someplace it really didn’t belong. The locations of the other deer were going to be way more of a hassle to deal with. 

“Jack’s keeping Olivia distracted so she doesn’t see anything,” Laura said. “He could keep an eye on Rory too, if you wanted to take her inside.”

Stiles was used to working with her daughter strapped to her chest in the sling, but when she flipped up a corner of the tarp and saw firsthand what the dead deer entailed, she rethought letting an infant be in close proximity to the gruesomeness. It certainly wouldn’t grant her any checkmarks in the good parent column.

She turned the tarp back down and said, “I think that’s a good idea.”

Laura stayed to guard the tarp while Stiles went to find Jack inside the house. She found him with Olivia in the kitchen as they stood in front of a barely contained mess at the kitchen island.

The little girl perked up when she saw Stiles enter, throwing her hands up and almost flinging batter across the room in her excitement. “Miss Stiles! Did you come to eat breakfast with us this morning? We’re making pancakes!”

Jack grabbed the batter covered whisk from his daughter’s hand before she had the chance to have it around more and set it down out of her reach. “We’re using our inside voices, remember?”

Olivia nodded solemnly at her father, but turned to Stiles with a bright smile, waiting for an answer.

“No, sorry sweetheart, not today,” said Stiles. “Your mommy asked for my help with something this morning, and your daddy offered to take care of Rory for me while your mommy and I worked.”

“Oh, okay.” Olivia shrugged with nonchalance of a small child and refocused her attention on the bowl of pancake batter that from Stiles’s perspective looked ready to pour.

Jack wiped his hands clean with a dish cloth that had been thrown over his shoulder and came around the edge of the island so that he was only a little more than an arm’s reach away from Stiles.

But Stiles hesitated in taking Rory out of the sling and passing her over to the waiting man. Jack wasn’t some random stranger, but he still wasn’t the Sheriff or Scott, and Stiles’s parent-brain was tripping up over the idea of leaving Rory in a new person’s hands, even if that person was a packmate and had plenty of his own experience as a parent.

Jack didn’t say anything, but the look on his face said he knew exactly was Stiles was thinking about.

_Fuck it_ she thought _I have to get used to this sooner or later_. Stiles squared her shoulders, dropped the diaper bag on the nearest flat surface, and began unravelling the cloth sling.

She passed Rory to Jack’s waiting arms, and as he shifted her into a more secure hold with a familiar ease, Rory didn’t even fuss.

“We’ll be right here when you’re done,” Jack said.

Stiles nodded and leaned into kiss Rory’s extremely kissable cheek before she backtracked her way to the reason she was here in the first place.

Laura raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow in a way that must have been a genetic trait of the Hales.

Stiles ignored it and said instead, “Time to go to work!”

The carcass wasn’t any better to look at the second time around. The decently-sized deer was laid out on its side where someone had slit its throat and cut down the entire length of body so that it was resting on top a pool of its own blood and internal organs. And the parts of its neck and side that faced upwards had a series of crude circles intersected by an unfamiliar pattern of lines.

After taking photos from several different angles and taking a cursory look for footprints around the body, Stiles pocketed her phone and reached out to place a hand on an un-marred spot near the deer’s head.

“Are you sure it’s safe to do that?”

“Most likely, yes,” replied Stiles. “Those symbols aren’t part of any spell or ritual I know, and I can’t tell anything else just by looking at it.”

Laura didn’t say anything else, but Stiles heard her move a few steps to where Stiles was carefully kneeling in the slightly damp grass, no doubt ready to grab Stiles in case there was any adverse reaction.

Stiles closed her eyes.

The body of the deer was cool and stiff to the touch and had been dead for several hours before it was discovered on the lawn. That was expected.

She took a deep breath to calm her pulse and reached out further with the humming energy already waiting at the tips of her fingers, eager to explore the deeper secrets of the deer. Stiles didn’t sense anything at first, but then, much like the Nemeton, she found the remaining tangled up impressions of a malignant force that had corrupted the deer. Impressions that existed everywhere within the deer except for where a blade had cut through skin and tissue.

Stiles withdrew from the deer carcass and gave herself a mental pat on the back for discovering a interesting piece of the puzzle that surrounded the threats to Beacon Hills and the Hale Pack.

“Call everyone who found a deer and tell them it’s safe to move them. I suggest taking them to the preserve to be burned,” Stiles said to Laura, standing and wiping the grass from her jeans. “And then have them meet me at the Pack House. I have an update to share.”


End file.
